Scientology & scientific standards

Galileo Galilei has been rightfully called the Father of Modern Science. He broke with the long standing tradition of belief through authority, something he was severely punished for by the Church.

Until Galileo introduced the standard of “proof by experiment”, scientists would believe something to be true because it conformed to the belief of the Church or because enough consensus could be gathered.

By modern scientific standards, a conjecture remains as such until it can be proven by experiment to be true or false. This is aptly summed up in the motto of The Royal Society of London; “Nullius in verba” (take nobody’s word for it)

By Galileo’s standard, nothing is true or false because some authority says so, or because the source of the theory is an honorable fella or because he is a liar. A theory has to be proven true or false by actual experiment.

Now, why should Scientology get a free pass as regards to this scientific standard? Why should we believe L. Ron Hubbard when he says that his Auditing Technology works? We shouldn’t. It must be tested.

Why should we believe a critic of Scientology when he says “it is all crap” because “Hubbard is a liar”? We shouldn’t. Again, it has to be tested.

I remain befuddled as Church staff counters a question with “because Hubbard says so” or a critic tries to “prove” that Scientology is a fake by pointing to Hubbard’s personality or life. It boils down to intellectual dishonesty, emotional knee-jerk reactions and sloppy judgments.

Your comment is interesting to me, as a scientist (and not a scientologist).

Here’s what a scientist thinks when confronted with the text of your post:

1) “LRH could clear people” — what actually is the definition of “clear”? Is it scientifically testable? I’ve read definitions such as “clears are free of their reactive mind” and they are supposed to have more of the “analytical mind”. Suppose there is a test for being clear. Was this done in 1948? Is it documented? What were the experiment(s)? How can we re-run these experiments, if they were done?

You seem confident that Hubbard ‘cleared’ people. Why do you think he did that? It said so in a scientology book? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. On the contrary, it is documented that one of Hubbard’s supposed clears (actually supposedly the first), a woman LRH presented under the pseudonym “Sonya Bianca”, failed miserably when tested on her claimed powers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_%28Scientology%29 And what happened to John McMasters?

Claiming “Testing SCN ain’t easy as it relies on auditor skill” and “Few can pull that off.” is pretty much the No True Scotsman logical fallacy. No clears? Blame the auditors and the current ‘tech’: “They’re not GOOD auditors”, or “It’s corrupt tech”. Sorry, this is just bunk. It’s like how the bible says, “People with true faith can drink poison and live”, and yet if someone did that and died, hardcore Christians would just be said that “Ahh, but they didn’t have TRUE faith”. LRH claimed he had “workable” tech and it produced results. Simply not true — if clears and OTs were real, everyone in the world would know about it, and the fact would be completely unarguable. Also check out Hubbard’s claims that his admin/business tech is the “only workable tech”. Hey, guess what? Google are stupidly successful and they don’t use Scientology tech. How is that? Guess Hubbard was wrong.

As far as I know, there is no evidence that any ‘Clear’ ever existed. The same for OTs. So-called ‘win’ stories about amazing coincidences and fuzzy feelings don’t count — coincidences do sometimes happens, people sometimes get better from illness spontaneously (‘Regression to the mean’), etc.

The cute thing about science is the very same thing that some people attack it for: the fact that it CAN “change its mind”. If someone popped up tomorrow and presented a realistic, repeatable experiment for testing someone as clear, or for making someone clear, and the experiment produced positive results, the scientific community would say “Hey, look, something new. More information about the world, cool.”

Finally, for anyone who is adamant that Scientology tech ‘just works’, I ask you: why is the official church now run by a violent sociopath who batters people?

Geir, I didn’t get the same sense of bias that you and Valkov did. I don’t read Charles’s antagonism as bias or even un-scientific. You can’t very well throw up an article challenging us to compare Scientology to scientific standards and not expect to be challenged. Your article was at least as antagonistic as Charles’s response. Again, I just don’t see any problem with the direction this is going. For me it is refreshing to speak openly about our thoughts on a subject so dear to (some of) our hearts.

I withdraw my comment. I’ve been on this merry-go-round before, and it’s not worth it to me. Here’s why-
You posted, for example:

“If someone popped up tomorrow and presented a realistic, repeatable experiment for testing someone as clear, or for making someone clear, and the experiment produced positive results, the scientific community would say “Hey, look, something new. More information about the world, cool.”

I am personally satisfied that a person who knows what s/he is doing, can use an e-meter to observe and measure certain things about a person’s mental state. Including whether or not they are “Clear”. Just as physicists use instruments to detect events that are imperceptible to the naked eye. Others have posted here about this already, I don’t need to post any more about it.

The other thing is, I don’t care at all whether or not you consider it “proved” or not; that’s irrelevant to me personally. However I am not opposed to your creating and setting up and running experiments on the matter to your own satisfaction. Go for it and more power to you if you do! No-one else will. Studies cost a lot of money to run. And if they can’t patent it, they won’t pay for it to be studied.

It hasn’t been effectively done much with any kind of psychotherapy, meditation, or prayer for that matter, yet millions of people continue on with those kind of practices and many claim “wins” on them.

“Science” doesn’t really study anything unless someone subsidizes the studies, and there has to be a military or a profit motive for any studies to be done on anything.

If we waited for “science” to prove things, we’d still be living in caves.

At my age, I have seen medical fads perpetuated by doctors, come and go. Usually based on some kind of half-assed studies.

I met a number of people in the early 1970s to early 1980s who were “Clear” or”OT” to their own satisfaction, and to mine as well, based on my own observation of them and asking them for their self-reports, that they were “Clear”. What “definition”of Clear were they using? Does it matter? I think not. It is a largely subjective state that may be perceptible to others also. It is largely their perception of their subjective space, their ongoing mental state, that matters. I felt it was perceptible to me. But there are also people who claim to have seen leprechauns, too. Or to have talked with God.

You, and everyone else, are certainly free to believe what you like about ‘clear’, and auditing, etc. But if someone states, in a public place, “This thing X is real, and it helps people”, other people have a right to say “Oh? Why do you think that?”, and ask them to say why they believe that. Especially when the thing ‘X’ is involved in controversies about people being deprived of their money and sometimes not having good time. Similarly, if ‘X’ is a *good* thing, then surely it should be promulgated more and the word should be spread. So people talk about it, and exchange viewpoints, and any third parties who see the debate take from it what they will.

‘If we waited for “science” to prove things, we’d still be living in caves.’ Btw, science doesn’t “prove” anything; science uses falsification to discard bad theories (hypotheses) and notes correlations which might support hypotheses, etc. Anywhere you see “Scientifically proved” written (e.g. adverts), you know that whoever came up with it doesn’t understand how science works. Anyway, I find your comment here really strange. Have you driven an automobile over a suspension bridge lately? Taken antibiotics or had an X-RAY? Been in a high rise building? Guess what’s responsible for successes like penicillin and structural engineering… Yup, science and scientific thought.

““Science” doesn’t really study anything unless someone subsidizes the studies, and there has to be a military or a profit motive for any studies to be done on anything.” — I disagree about the military or profit motive, see above again.

“It hasn’t been effectively done much with any kind of psychotherapy, meditation, or prayer for that matter, yet millions of people continue on with those kind of practices and many claim “wins” on them.” — if by “it” you mean “be shown to have statistically significant beneficial effects, based on evidence”, I’m afraid I have to disagree about psychotherapy. http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-65-2-shedler.pdf (and there’s plenty more where that came from). Have you confronted the actual data?

I have no doubt that the vast majority of scientologists are good people, and that some people have had positive experiences in scientology. It’s the downsides that worry me.

Ok, again, I withdraw my post. Here are a couple of comments only:
1. Your questions about the claims are entirely valid. But without a grounding in the basic materials of scientology you will never know the answers, be able to conceive relevant studies, etc. I can expand on why I think so, and will, if you wish.

2. I bring up the food analogy again: A man is selling cakes or steaks. He claims “they taste really good, buy one and try it!”

The scientist comes along and says “well I need proof they taste good. If you can’t prove they taste good, by validated duplicatable double-blind studies, I won’t taste them.”

The physical universe may garner a lot of agreement and that is why it may be tested against that agreement. But is that so about the spritual universe too?

Maybe it is. And that will give us a very different view of the spirtual universe. The spiritual universe, then, would not consist of God, spirits, demons, etc. It would not consist of anything paranormal either. It would not consist of incidents as in OT III, or in History of Man. It would not consist of all these theories, such as, spiritual transposition.

Yes,Republicans take note, it actually IS government that has funded most of the productive research that has taken place in recent history. This medium we are using here to not communicate, you and I, the Internet, computers, etc, would not exist if it had not been for government money. However, the Internet evolved from a network designed for Defense. Most of our technology came about that way. Very little of it was funded for altruistic reasons.

Be all that as it may, I have withdrawn my comment for a reason. Any discussion between us is pointless in my estimation. Been there, done that. It is a waste of time. You generalize and form conclusions from the slices of reality you have seen, I do the same. We are not much on the same page, or perhaps it is partly lack of a common vocabulary.

You want “truth in advertising” from scientologists”, that’s fine. I want it from doctors, insurance salesmen, politicians, pharmaceutical manufacturers, whatever. So perhaps we have something in common. I’m simply not interested in debating “worldviews”. That usually ends badly.

So”Good Luck” to you on your journey, I’m sure you have much to contribute, but also much to learn. I do like reading your posts. Unfortunately I have other things going on in my life such that I do not feel I have the time to spend doing your posts justice.

Isene, I find your post very factual having being a highly trained auditor who has also done what is called OT8 .
I just have done months of reading everything I could get my hands on pro and con leaving me with serious questions about Hubbard and his tactics.
I dared to look and see for myself the works of Bruer (the real source of Dianetics),Otto Rank,the Rosecrutian principles,Socrates , Kant’s Pure Critique of logic paper, JamesWillaim ‘s views,Crowley’s Adept Procedure,Kristnia’s Hindu Phillosophy in regards to one’s duty and much much more .
I found as a result Hubbard to be just a great salesman,packager & plagiarizer of other people’s work along with also being one hell of a hypnotist!
The concept of superbeing(OT) was dangled as a carrot and also a stopwatch in front of people’s noses to see who would be tranced by it.To have been in that dazed state and wake oneself up takes some real courage in the regaining of one’s own true integrity along with their free will.

I agree with Charles except that in the field of spirituality I would not expect or demand that much scientific accuracy than in the field of engineering. I would not get into discussing now, how much accuracy would be desirable in the field of spirituality.
Now, with Scientology I would expect the subject to correspond with scientific testing as it has axioms, it is presented as a technology and it is said it works and it is said “correctly applied it works” just to mention a couple of points. In my opinion these all point to the necessity of scientific validity and not validity by lawyers.
If it works 100 % when correctly applied and it is an important subject to be applied correctly than we must know what does it mean “correctly applied”. We can only be sure about it by scientific testing.
(And it must go through scientific testing or must be subject to punishment of freud.)

SCN may not be testable, but outpoints may be noted. Your post primarily contains the outpoint of omitted data. Let’s start with what “correctly applied” mean.

Obviously, we are not getting 100% results because Scientology is a controversial subject. None of this controversy would be there if SCN worked 100%. That means SCN is not being correctly applied 100% of the time. Why is that? Doesn’t SCN has the tech to resolve it?

As for auditing – that would be a tough one to prove in that it is really a subjective evolution. Yes, others may notice some distinct or subtle change in a person … could that be attributed solely to auditing? I *assume* that it could be in many cases.

Who am I to say whether another has gained something withing/without from auditing, or for that matter, any endeavor.

To me, if they are expanding & enjoying a better existence in their estimation, then all is good.

I don’t care to be evaluated for, nor do I do it to others.

There are many glossy-eyed fanatics rattling off quotes, etc.; and nay-sayers who can cut & paste all manner of ‘anti’ material.

Unless they actually do experiment & try something to see if it ACTUALLY works for them from their own viewpoint, to me they exemplify the flat-earth society – head in the sand and unwilling to look.

“Unless they actually do experiment & try something to see if it ACTUALLY works for them from their own viewpoint, to me they exemplify the flat-earth society – head in the sand and unwilling to look.”

Two issues I have with this:

a) Burden of proof. The entity making the positive claim is the one who needs to furnish the proof. “Scientology does X, Y and Z” — great, prove it. It’s not up to other people to disprove it.

b) Even if we forget about a), the point about “actually do experiment & try something to see if it ACTUALLY works for them” sounds reasonable, except then I remember about the whole paying thousands and thousands of bucks to do this ‘experiment’, and the other risks involved (being stalked by church PIs, etc.) This wouldn’t be a ‘cheap’ experiment.

Regarding a) Burden of Proof: What I did say was that this would be tough to prove – it is a subjective experience. It is one’s own evolution.

I guess I could liken it to one who has a belief in God and is ‘reborn’ or communicated to God/Jesus or had a vision. I would never ask such a person to prove that he did so, or prove that he is truly reborn. This is something he has experienced for himself. It is really outside of the material scientific arena, but I would say is likely a newer realm of science.

I likened it to the flat-earth society – is contemplating that the earth may not be flat so much different than contemplating that Man may be a a bit more than a protoplasmic mix of chemicals running at 98.6? Maybe there will be some sort of ‘scientific’ test of a different sort in the future.

To dismiss another’s realizations/gains in a spiritual context by saying prove it now or it’s false, to me would a mistake. Some were called heretics in the past; now they are called visionaries.

As for b) Paying thousands of bucks for this experiment: I’d sure be glad I did pay if I was on the leading edge of pushing the envelope of ‘human’ understanding and experience. I’d hate to say I had the chance but passed on it because of a few bucks.

By the way; the current scene in the church with all the horror stories you read & hear, and yes, the expense of having PIs chase you around, is NOT Scientology. But at least these guys have evolved to carrying cameras instead of torches. 🙂

Let’s say I do some activity and I say I feel GOOD after I do it!
Do I need to”prove” that I feel good after I do it????
Gimme a break!

I eat a gourmet chocolate confection and I say “That really tastes good to me!”
Do I need to “prove” that it tasted good to me???? Get real!

Now, it was asserted by those who practiced “running”on a regular basis, that it “made them feel good”. Eventually the matter was studied by “scientists”. Lo and behold, it was found that the practice of running resulted in the production of endorphins which correlated with that “good feeling”runners reported experiencing.

Similarly, meditation has been studied somewhat, resulting in the publication of popular books like “The Relaxation Response”, and the adoption of meditative techniques by some cardiovascular treatment programs as well as some psychotherapists. So there are aspects of “subjective” techniques that can be measured or studied.

So there you have it. Does a successful auditing session to an F/N result in the release of endorphins in the preclear?

That could be studied with the presently available scientific tools and methods. But who’s going to bother to do it?

So there you go Charles, go to it. This consultation was free, there will be a charge to you for any additional study proposals.

If you eat a chocolate and it makes you feel good, GREAT! Go for it. I’d be happy you had a tasty chocolate and as one who has had tasty food myself, I know it’s well in the realm of the everyday.

However, Pascal Dorion didn’t say “LRH could give people tasty chocolates in 1948”. He said “LRH could clear people in 1948”. Is there a significant difference? I think so.
What does clear mean? Well, let’s look at what source himself wrote in Dianetics:

“A Clear, for instance, has complete recall of everything which ever happened to him, or anything he ever studied. He does mental computations, such as those in chess, for example, which a normal would do in half an hour, in ten or fifteen seconds.” (pg. 214, 1992 Ed.).

So, Pascal was making a HUGE claim up there by saying LRH made a clear. The powers promised to people if they go Clear are basically super human. That fact, taken alongside the large cost of scientology auditing, causes me concern. Can you see why?

If I said to you that I had a really good curry last night, and it was very tasty, you’d probably believe me. You know curries exist, as you’ve seen overwhelming evidence of them, and maybe even eaten some tasty ones youselves. It is not an extraordinary claim. Attributing someone superhuman powers to a human, however, is a most extraordinary claim, as is the claim that another person can help bestow these powers on someone. If I told you I’d jumped 500 feet onto the top of a building using only the power of my own calf muscles, would you believe me? If not, why not?

So maybe I’ve got the wrong end of the stick here. What do you mean by ‘clear’? What does Pascal mean by ‘clear’? Does it have anything to do with what LRH said and wrote? Or do you just mean you felt good? If the latter, why confuse things by using the wrong word, a hugely loaded word?

I’m all for tests that show the response of the human to auditing and similar things – endorphins, well being, etc..But I’m also interested to see any evidence for the extraordinary claims.

Indeed. “Clear” at least partly defined in the Tech Dictionary. There are several definitions, coming at the idea from several different angles.
Hubbard’s understanding of the state and thus his attempts to define it evolved considerably over the first 15-20 years of the development of the subject.

Let me say first, I am not a “Clear”. My understanding comes from reading, listening to lectures, and talking with people who believed they were clear and for whom the state was validated by the auditor using an e-meter. There is considerable specific technology developed on the subject, you are perhaps best talking with trained tech people about it, than beating the air here with speculations. There exist such procedures ans a “Clear Check”, Clear Certainty Rundown, perhaps more, that would be better understood by folks trained in applying them.

It is the person receiving the auditing and reaching a certain point in the course of it, who realizes “I’m clear”, based on his own introspection of his own mind combined with the available definitions. That’s why I used the taste analogy.

It occurs to me I now know why these kind of discussions are a bit of a waste of time – “beating the air with speculation”. It is because we apparently don’t have scientology techies participating in them. The Church has let training slip almost completely over the past 2 decades; Aida Thomas has a very telling post about this on Jeff’s blog in the “Reality Check” thread I believe it is, about how the Class VIII courseroom she was in was summarily closed mid-course. This happened quite a few years ago I believe.

Where spiritual technology is concerned, the burden of proof lies on the person who is applying it. The person who is applying it is actually the preclear. Gains come from looking, and not from some mysterious procedure. The preclear does the looking. An auditor simply helps the preclear look. That is the simplicity of it.

The test is did a person get the gains from it? If he didn’t then Scn didn’t work for him. If he did then Scn worked for him.

To focus on Scn procedures being workable or not is the wrong target. Each person’s mind is stacked up differently. Different procedures may work in different sequence for different persons. So if auditing didn’t work, the possible reasons would be (in the order of probability):

(a) The person was not trained to look.
(b) The processes were not applied in the correct sequence.
(c) Wrong processes were applied, insisting that they were correct.
(d) Answers to wrong processes were demanded or insisted upon.

As I stated in another post, there are gains in Scn but what brings about those gains is not nailed down totally, and that is why gains are not 100% certain in Scn. It may be blamed on lack of correct application, but that seems to be an excuse. I don’t think that “correct application” is totally nailed down in Scientology. It is not the auditor alone whose application matters. It is the application by the preclear that matters more and that part has not been emphasized in Scn auditing, in my opinion.

Isn’t it “nailed down”? Isn’t it basically “looking” just as you say, which results in the as-isness of the previously uninspected or otherwise hidden mental MEST as well as the decisions he made, which are influencing his state of being and awareness, below his level of awareness?

You hit on a very important point I think. Somehow Scientology escapes proper scientific evaluation from both camps. Why?

The idea that Scientology technology in the right hands produces wins should not be too hard to prove.

A little harder to prove would be that those wins are not just placebo

Yet harder to prove wold be that it produces wins better and faster than other practices (never mind the difficulties in defining exactly what constitutes a win…is being able to better dominate others a win for example?)

Even harder would be to establish the veracity of the theoretical assumptions why such wins are produced, in other words the scientific model behind it.

LRH from the very inception of the subject has claimed that it is a science, and even in some places claimed that it has been better verified than the physical sciences.

Most people believing the model/theory behind it (such as the actuality of the reactive mind, that theta holds power over MEST, that space is a viewpoint of dimension, that reincarnation is actual, and so on up to Zenu etc.) come to this belief without any real scientific evaluation of the claims at all. In fact most people are not trained in how to evaluate things scientifically. The points of “evidence” used to validate any and all claimsby LRH are:

1. I had a win, so therefore it works
2. Since this works the rest must also work
3. The data is logically coherent and makes sense to me – it explains much of what I never understood before, therefore must be true
4. What I have checked out so far holds true to me (after all, the definition of truth is that which is true to you, isn’t it?) therefore the rest must also be true
5. And because of this there is really no need to question anything from here on out
6. If by chance I happen to disagree or not see how something is true, I just have to find my MU’s and clear them. Or I can find the “enemy line” and blow it

In fact the whole thing is rigged to absolutely nullify any small ability to think scientifically a person might have had.

The funny thing is while people fall for this, they can still have a very high ability left to evaluate data in other areas of their lives. It is just in this one spot they are blind.

Why? Is it that it is too painful to cast even a small doubt upon one’s cherished beliefs? Is it frowned upon too heavily by the group? Is it the simple fact that once an idea has been accepted it is against people’s nature to question it?

I can say for myself that the factor that got me to step out of this think was when I got further trained in the scientific method. I am a scientist by education, but even many scientists have a poor grip on proper data evaluation. I once did a survey of over 100 people, many scientists included, of what they considered the word “true” meant. The vast majority answered “what is true for me”. These were not scientologists by the way. Based on this definition (if it is the right one) should we then conclude that back in the days when most people believed in blood letting that it actually worked? And that it stopped working when it was no longer true to people?

“2. Since this works the rest must also work
4. What I have checked out so far holds true to me (after all, the definition of truth is that which is true to you, isn’t it?) therefore the rest must also be true”

The 2 clauses ‘the rest must also work’, and ‘therefore the rest must also be true’.

I think these two assumptions will turn out a robot – an unthinking individual who is unable to evaluate the data in front of him and blindly follows whatever is written. This is quite different from the returning of one’s self-determinism.

I guess one could in fact consider these assumptions to be true, but I think it immediately cuts one off from the fruits of observation and expansion.

Ivro, that model of thinking is accurate IMHO. And knowing a system inside and out that produces such a model of mind control is a POWERFUL antidote to such conditioning.

I think the purpose of what Geir is trying to do is to encourage people to use the Scientific method to marry the the actual effects produced by Scientology to the right causes of those effects for the betterment of everyone.

I know Geir will correct me if I’m wrong here.

That said …

Yes bloodletting was an archaic practice that didn’t produce the effects people thought it did. INSTEAD IT IS WAY, WAY COOLER. Giving blood is good for your body. It lowers cholesterol, forces your body to enter a growth mode and saves lives.

So maybe the ancients were right about bloodletting but for the wrong reasons, or for reasons not yet discovered.

1. Auditing is part science and part art form — a given?
2. There is a trained and professional auditor needed to conduct the experiment.
3. The results are traditionally subjectively based per the “success story.”
4. I would hypothesize that there must be an organic and measurable result because of the e-meter’s tone-arm action.
5. Regarding measurement: Because auditing makes mental changes which have what I would term a “cascading” effect, it unclear to me how to take all mental adjustments into account. In other words, “mental mass” must have some type of “tension” which in a lucid person must be being held in “equilibrium.” Creating a change in one part of the mind creates changes in mass or charge or equilibrium which then after the processing of the individual has occurred, then “settles-out” or otherwise seeks equilibrium again. What organic experiment is similar and contains controls and measurements to provide us both a beginning point and a meaningful ending point with which to measure this?
6. The Tone Arm does provide a meaningful measurement relative to the beginning of the auditing session and to the ending of the auditing session.
7. The e-meter needle action provides a relatively reliable measure of the subject’s own subjective state of being – whether “happy” or “agitated” for some reason and to some degree.
8. It seems that for decades the auditor has used the e-meter to measure both the pre-clear’s state of mind as well as general case progress. Is this not objective data?
9. I suppose that if scientists and engineers can built a miles long collider to smash atoms against one another then I suppose that this problem of objectively measuring a person’s “spiritual” progress can eventually be worked out. It occurs to me to wonder if it is very necessary or will improve auditing results to do so? These thoughts have been quickly typed off without much thought or organization so . . . just sayin’!

Regarding the cascading effect of auditing: Pre-OT’s running processes and even “completing” processes on the OT levels have traditionally and routinely gotten “sicker” as well as “better.” Tampering with the mind creates effects which require more research than has heretofore occurred and it should be a given that Scientology processing is a work in progress that requires more work, more research, more results, more tabulation and correlation. It is a “good” beginning into the field of the mind which deserves more research and development. In my opinion, LRH deserves kudos for his work but not for the assertion that the “bridge to total freedom” is a finished work.

Tone Arm action is somewhat of a gauge but then the naysayers will pipe up that it was because I turned up the thermostat or loosened the buckle on my pants – after all, I did have that big turkey dinner. 🙂

I’m surprised that no “techie” piped up here. But from my own auditor training of years ago, I recall that changes in tone arm motion from things like “thermostat” or “buckle” are to be subtracted from the total TA action, at the end of the session. I’m pretty sure this was even on the Solo I course.

I hope it’s not true that, as I believe someone here already suggested, there are no highly-trained techies in the discussion. That would be an interesting point in itself.

@Quicksilver. Oops, I guess too subtle for me. 🙂 But my real question is still, are there any highly-trained tech people, like Class VIs or VIIIs (even better) contributing here? PARTICULARLY those who have done many hours of auditing. And if not, why not? The answer might be telling, somehow.

If they do comment, I wish they would identify themselves as that would add “context” to their comments, for me. It does sorta show who is at least “very well read,” but hard to extrapolate more than that.

I get that you, yourself, have some training (maybe a lot!), and your input has been great in any case.

Honestly, I believe one needs to be a Class VIII and Interned as well, to really have a grasp of this and make such a judgement. How can one know whether Standard Tech is complete or “a work in progress”, unless one has studied it thoroughly?

One can certainly spot outpoints and omissions in something without studying everything. It seems like a “STFO” to put forth that argument – similar to “one should have a PhD in Democracy in order to vote”.

I don’t entirely agree. A person who drives an automobile might have opinions and conjectures about the technology involved, but a graduate automotive engineer would have a depth and certainty of knowledge about automotive technology that most people who only own and drive cars, don’t.

Autos today are so complex diagnostic equipment is needed to do most any work on them; 30 years ago a person could still work on his own car’s engine, replace parts, etc himself. Today that’s hardly true.

As for the, I think you meant “STFU”, there is some of that sentiment on my part sometimes. There is, to me, a continuum of pure opinion based on nothing factual at all, to opinions that are increasingly well informed.

Thus to me the opinion about Standard Tech of an uncompromised Class VIII auditor would carry more weight than an uncompromised Class IV auditor.

By “uncompromised” I mean not corrupted by an association with the current Church of Scientology.

A technical opinion from a preclear who was not auditor trained would carry less weight than that of an auditor.

When my car isn’t running properly, I don’t go down to the neighborhood bar and take a vote on what’s wrong with it and how to fix it; I take it to a certified shop with trained technicians.

If and when Scientology tech is “improved” or evolved, it will be by people well-trained in the subject who have a good first hand grasp of it, not by the neighborhood grocer nor indeed, by anyone who isn’t conversant with the subject.

Just as better or more advanced automotive technology won’t be developed by anyone other than qualified engineers.

Opinions, like talk, are cheap. Is there anyone in the world who is not chock full of opinions on just about everything. Just read the comments on the various news blogs, or ESMB or WWP for that matter. What percentage do you feel are”informed opinions”? All those people are allowed to vote, but how many of them would you want to have doing brain surgery on you, or diagnosing you, and developing any kind of treatment plan on you, or auditing you?

As for Class VIII auditors or C/Ses posting in discussions like this, why would they? What would they say? What could an experienced graduate engineer say to a group like this, about automotive technology, that would be at this group’s reality level?

This is a problem on any discussion site on any technical subject, and the more so when the subject is Scientology; half the readers and a lot of the posters don’t even realize that Scientology IS a technical subject that an advanced practitioner of has spent thousands of hours studying and learning how to DO.

Many people, even many who have been on staff, seem to think “it’s a philosophy, so my opinion is as good as the next guy’s!”

Geir, the above is a reply to your comment beginning with
“One can certainly spot outpoints and omissions in something without studying everything.”

In fact, NO to the above sentence also. It is self-contradictory.

One cannot spot outpoints in something one is not looking at or has not looked at. “Studying” means looking at, or examining something.

A Class VIII has “Looked” at or “examined” Standard Tech as a whole -the complete elephant, so to speak. A Class IV has looked at only parts of it. A Class IV might be compared to an automotive technician; a Class VIII to the engineer the technician works with.

If one does not “study everything” (the whole elephant), how does one know that what he thinks is an “outpoint” isn’t simply something he hasn’t studied yet that comes later in the curriculum?

(I guess Marildi has already commented in this direction.)

I should add that my opinions are dealing with the tech of the Lower Bridge through Clear, not the OT levels.

A person can certainly spot an outpoint in any area if he can spot an outpoint in that area. Almost anyone can spot outpoints with Nazi-Germany without having studied all of Nazism. Your statements smells of elitism.

I will guess we are not on the same page here. I may have missed your point, but it seems to me you have also missed mine, which I thought was related to what you said.

I am not talking about “everything”, I am talking about a specific set of technological procedures – the auditing of the Standard Bridge from beginner through Clear.

In order to improve on the existing technology, one must first know what the existing technology is, otherwise how would one know what needs improvement? How does one spot an outpoint in something he does not “know”? (Sense, perceive, examine, comprehend?)

There is no valid comparison that I can see, between “politics” and the techniques of “auto repair” or “automotive engineering”. Apples vs. oranges at best.

The driver of a car may well have a wish list of improvements he would like to have made to his car, but he will not be the one who develops the improvements – engineers will be doing that.

Valkov, I basically agree with everything you said in the above. Just one correction to what you understood from my posts – I was mainly taking issue with anyone pointing out *omissions* if they hadn’t made a thorough study.

But as for *outpoints* I’m thinking that you and Geir might have very different kinds of outpoints in mind. To use your describing-an-elephant analogy: you would object to someone only familiar with the trunk expressing the “outpoint” that the elephant has no visual ability, for example. Whereas Geir might object to that person being criticized for looking at outpoints about the trunk itself, just because the person wasn’t familiar with and hadn’t studied the whole elephant.

That probably isn’t a very precise analogy, but I suspect something along those lines. Correct me if I’m wrong. (And I’ll withdraw the unsolicited refering. 🙂 )

On the point of Class VIIIs contributing here I was mostly interested in their take on general workability of the tech and it’s success rate. And I would prefer that they be, as you said, “uncompromised” and interned – and I would add experienced with lots and lots of pcs. But I’d also welcome their jumping in on tech points that get debated, and I do think they could express *whatever* in layman terms (at the right gradient, in the right debth, right R). However, they may have no interest in investing their beans in such, as you seem to imply. Oh, well (sigh).

“A PhD in Democracy” is actually not a bad idea,butin this case we are talking about a lack of even basic “Civics” knowledge. In the USA, Civics is no longer taught in high schools as it once was. The result is a populace that does not know how their government works or is supposed to work. “Ignorance is Strength”, right?

A more informed and involved populace would be better voters, is my opinion. This ignorance benefits only the politicians; an ignorant populace is easier to fool and control.

So yes, a PHD in Democracy would make for smarter and more effective voters. But at this point, even an education in basic Civics would be an improvement!

Geir, this comment is way out of sequence, (an”outpoint” in the way WordPress blogs work?), but I think I see the problem in our earlier discussion.
It is that I have no clue as to the definitions of “outpoints”, “pluspoints” and all that nomenclature, so I am missing a lot of your meaning.

I guess I will have to get the Data Series somehow and read it.
Does anyone know where I can download it? If not, I believe I can get the volume which contains it on Ebay.

“Standard tech” is just a method. Whether it is complete or not would depend on what the source of Standard tech intended.

But, one can tell from general expectations if Standard tech is complete or not. As far as I can see, Standard Tech does not meet the general expectations as results are not 100% from its current application in Scientology orgs or in the Independent field. If they were, I should be hearing more about it on Internet.

One may say that it is because the Standard Tech is not being applied 100%. But I feel that a problem like that should be addressable by Standard Tech. What is the use of Standard Tech that cannot be applied 100% with ease?

Chris, you state that pre-OTs have “traditionally and routinely gotten ‘sicker’ as well as ‘better.'” It sort of implies that each of these occurs about as often as the other, and if that is what you mean – Where does that datum come from? 🙂

Seriously, I’m not expecting scientific evidence or anything like that. My own *impression* is that they mostly get better – which is pretty much based on what I observed while onlines, both as staff and public. So I’m just wondering what you observed that gave you the impression you got. Science itself starts with impressions or observations, doesn’t it?

Sorry for butting in, but perhaps this is related to the auditor not knowing when the EP is reached? At lower levels one gets a release, then has to go ‘unrelease’ in order to as-is some more stuff. Until he runs that stuff out and achieves the next point of ‘release’, he will be ‘worse’ or ‘sicker’ for awhile. A process could be not fully run, or a process could be overrun, which can also produce a ‘bad’ state of the pc or pre-OT. Auditing turns something “on”, which then needs to be handled in someway until it is turned “off”.

Valkov, feel free to butt in anytime! I was butting in on your comm cycle with Geir just yesterday. (The one about “the complete elephant.” It’s still waiting moderation, but you’ll probably see it soon.)

On what you say above, it’s true that a not-fully-run or overrun process might make a pc sicker. I don’t know about the other point, though – that he gets ‘sicker’ when he goes “unrelease.” He’ll “come down” but shouldn’t actually get “sick,” per my understanding. But you are probably using the term very loosely or broadly.

Anyway, my main interest was in the comments here that seem to indicate it happens a lot, even as often as not. And that hasn’t been my own impression, so I wonder what it is based on – a very limited view or what? But no one this applies to has responded yet… 🙂

Yes, I was using the term”sicker” very broadly, maybe too broadly. The scenario I have in mind is attaining a state of release, then continuing on to work on the next level of unresolved case.

One never actually “gets sicker”, it is more like”10 steps forward” then what seems like”one step back” but the trend is actually upward the whole time, one doesn’t really “get worse” as one is addressing new charge.

Right you are Marildi – you could infer that from what I wrote. I didn’t intend to create a statistically generality. I showed my bias. I have friends and have known – subjectively – many pre-OT’s who simply got sick routinely (there’s that word again) and died. Beginning with Betty Filisky, the first NOT’s completion circa 1985. Lindy Duncanson, Leo Johnson, Yvonne Jentsch, and L. Ron Hubbard to name a few off the top of my head.
Valkov (below) makes good comments about the correctness of End Phenomena. The ACTUAL statistics of this could lend an important insight to the true workability of Scientology. One of the workability factors of Scientology would need to be a sane and operational organization, wouldn’t it? So again, some of the data that we need and want, being meshed inextricably with the Church, skews our results because of the non-standard or non-scientific application of the extant Tech. Valkov’s comments about EP’s were directed at a milder form of what I meant to imply. In other words, I didn’t mean the day to day and “temporary” restimulation of the bank during auditing. I didn’t even mean the type of restimulation from which I suffered, “red-tagged” if you will for over 15 years until Aida and Dave sorted me out and repaired what had been bothering me. My post referred to certified OT’s who just dwindled and died bad deaths. The biased word – “bad” – is included for dramatic effect.

Thanks, Chris, and I do know where you’re coming from as regards the far too many OTs who’ve been “stricken,” that we hear about. There’s quite a bit has been said about this on various blogs, having to doing with the out-tech eligibility sec checks being done for some years now on at least some of the OTs or pre-OTs – starting with the fact that the sec checks are actually done in the non-interference zone, not to mention the CS’d purposes behind them at times – whether “political” or financial. And assuming all these notions are correct, then we’re still in the realm of non-standard tech, aren’t we?

In the end, though, as far as an overall assessment of workability, looks like you scientist types are right – we need actual statistics. And I’ve even come around to seeing that scientific investigation of the tech itself could be the way toward improvement or higher development of it. 🙂

Scientific process as it has evolved can not be applied to the subject of Scn because it is a spiritual philosophy and application, not a statement about the agreed-upon universe of average perception. It goes beyond the boundaries of the commons and when it does, it goes past the realm that can be set up as a replicable and falsifiable test framework. Furthermore it depends for its workability on postulates from that realm beyond the “normal” space-time continuum where science works routinely. Hell–scientific methods have not acheived absolute zero in physical terms yet; how to do you expect they would be able to evaluate a “static” in the Scn sense? Another aspect: scientific method is geared to eliminate subjective opinions and considerations, while Scn, by contrast, is built on them. Go figger.

To this I say: Nice try in dodging. Because; This defense could be used against psychology and several other -ologies as well. I can invent some mumbo-jumbo today and raise the same defense. But – I guess you would object. It gets us nowhere.

Most scientific observations were “beyond” the scope of science when science began. The transitory correctness of observed data is so taken for granted by researchers today that it is a “given” that what is taught as extant technology in medical school today is also speculated to be 50% wrong within 10 years. Science has to be built on incrementally and always open to scrutiny into the future. This is a very hard one for religious pursuits whose very motivation is to nail down anchor points to make things hold still.

These are common arguments against the scientific method. They are used very often in the field of ESP research to explain failure when the scientific method is applied.

The scientific method does not have to be limited to things measurable with conventional instruments. The scientific method is NOT necessarily limited to the physical universe at all. Just because science has not admitted to any other reality currently than the one of MEST so to speak, does not mean that such a reality could not be discovered and indeed proven through the scientific method. The scientific method is simply a way of checking and verifying by all possible means that something we think is true actually is. You could even apply the scientific method within your own mind, and there would not have to be any kind of exterior evidence whatsoever. Let me exemplify some ways in which the tenets of Scientology COULD be checked (albeit perhaps not fully worked out in detail and somewhat clumsy) scientifically.

1. Workability. It is common practice in many fields of study to use subjective measurements to get an objective result. Question before and after auditing as to how a person feels could suffice on this point, and does indeed for much research into psychology and medicine. For instance the efficacy of a pain killer has to be researched by such means, as there is currently no good “physical” measurement of pain.

2. Is it only placebo? Two or three control groups would have to be used. One gets scientology, one gets something else and the third one gets nothing. Ideally one should be able to perfectly mimic what scientology procedure appears like, but not “actually” do it – like giving commands that are supposed to be neither workable nor destructive. A bit harder to design, but not in principle impossible.

3. The spiritual realities and wins. Take as an example the spiritual phenomenon of exteriorization. It is perhaps true that we can not DIRECTLY measure an OOB spirit, but we can with reasonable certainty ascertain that something like that exists: have the spirit go somewhere where the body is not and see what’s there. This is a common method used in ESP research. The difficulty lies in separating between OOB and clairvoyance.

4. Checking the zenu story. One approach would be to look for archeological evidence, which there ought to be at least SOME of. Another approach would be to collect other definite out of the ordinary statements about things that are supposed to exist that LRH has uttered, and then pick some that might be verifiable with physical evidence. Disproving him on a couple of points would cast serious doubt on the rest (although not conclusively disproving them, but that might suffice to arrive at a scientific consensus that it improbable that the rest is true). He has for instance made statements about how the various planets look and we know know better. Another example is the age of the universe, which LRH puts at trillions of years. Nowhere does he mention big bang, which at the very least should have been mentioned as an important incident if the universe by chance was even older than that as he claims.

5. OT abilities. For instance the power of postulates. This wold not be too hard to measure. Set up a situation where postulates are supposed to work. A good example is the ability to influence random events. This sort of research is already being done (with mixed results)

My point is simply that the scientific method is NOT limited to checking things which are already established as true by the scientific community.

I fully accept that in the future scientists may find aspects to reality we don’t know about know about now — other dimensions and so forth — but at that point, they will become part of the ‘physical universe’, and not ‘some ghostly other-thing’.

It’s a bit like how if some sort of “alternative medicine”, e.g. homeopathy, was proved effective, it would become simply “medicine”.

“The difficulty lies in separating between OOB and clairvoyance.” — very true, and this is a point people often overlook when talking about out of body experiments etc.

“My point is simply that the scientific method is NOT limited to checking things which are already established as true by the scientific community.” — yup, absolutely true, and this is why Scientology and/or its adherents should be trying to provide some convincing evidence of its usefulness.

Perhaps I was unclear. I am referring to an argument often brought up that since such things as spirits are not physical, then they can not be measured by conventional physical instruments, and therefore are completely outside the ability of science to verify one way or another. Another way of voicing the same viewpoint is that spirits should not be required to be proved, because science just deals with physical things and therefore can not and never will be able to prove them.

While it might be true that we will never have a physical instrument, in the current view of what physics is, that can measure a spirit, we can nevertheless subject the existence of spirits to testing (I mention some examples).

My take on the whole “non-physical” entities thing, which I think is what you’re referring to, is as follows: suppose there is something non-physical (which means, as far as I am concerned, not in the universe and can have no effect on the universe). What way would there be of interating with it, measuring it? Why would we even give a hoot about it either way, if it was “somewhere” but totally incapable of interacting with our universe? Something which is ‘there’ but totally untangible to physical reality (including the matter inside our head) is exactly the same as something which isn’t there, as far as our universe goes.

As for measuring instruments: if there is a spiritual element to us, that was in any way connected to us physically (and if it wasn’t it connected, it would be meaningless, see above), then we ourselves would be the physical ‘measuring’ instruments: the physical matter of our brain. But then you’ve got the whole problem of knowing HOW someone apparently got remote viewing powers, etc. — and as you rightly note, it might be some sort of ESP and not out of body things, etc. Even if you had a completely unexplainable observation, like “Charles can see through walls 50 miles away!”, you can’t automatically say “Ghosts must exist” or “out of body travel must happen”. You’d need to dig into it deeper and try to make some experiments to test some hypetheses, and so on.

By the way, regarding testing the zenu story: most of the volcanoes mentioned therein didn’t even exist 75 million years ago. That doesn’t exactly inspire people to look for evidence to verify it!

I agree, Vinaire. However, if we can deduce that spirits exist due to their effect (interaction) with this physical universe, that means they have at least a part, an aspect, in this physcial universe (otherwise there would be nothing to measure). In other words, they are a physcial phenomenon. I repeat my position: science works with things in this physical universe. To state otherwise makes no sense at all. If ‘spirits’ do turn out to exist, and science hypothesises their existence and lots of evidence supports their existence, great! But at that point spirits, whether you like it or not, are a physcial part of the universe (even if that physical part is limited to transmitting information to a human brain in a way that is not otherwise observable). If they weren’t a part of the physical universe, there would be no way to measure them or interact with them. Science works via empiricism, observation.

Charles, I am with you. I believe that the definition of “spirit” needs to be sorted out. To me, spirit, mind and body are not independent of each other. All three elements are part of one system. Please see Essay #5: THE NATURE OF EXISTENCE

Ivro’s point#1 “Workability” includes anecdotal evidence, as well as before-and-after testing. There are decades of both available for scientology auditing and training.
Would you say where there’s smoke there’s likely to be fire?

Ron didn’t tell us to believe him on his word..
What you ask for is a very difficult thing indeed,and what do you suggest should be done with the subject if it fails the test? I am for opening up the subject 4 discussions like this.And i think time and trial will work it out,no one is going to invest time or money in something that is unworkable.Geir are you trained as an Auditor and has you been auditing? I think that is the only way to get a reality on the tech.What is not working about Scientology is the secrecy the Cult and the prises..

BTW, Science came way after much more fundamental thing to human nature called “belief” and “faith”. And may be that’s why Hubbard was able to successfully exploit the gullible ones appealing to their beliefs and faith (in his guru-ness).

If there ever was or has been highly developed civilisatons who had or has had highly developed science and technology, and if everyone (or some) knew that for sure and objectively , the queston wouldn’t become a question.

But if we speak of Xenu, Marcabians and other out-of-this-world civilisations (that only Hubbard witnessed, “resarched” and “documented”), we are in the you-never-know game. For sure. For ever. … Unless we break the cycle and look at it from outside. – Especially, at the “whole track”.

This is partly a cross-post from the TSF, where a poster recently asserted that “CoS, Freezoners, and Independents will never let testing happen, never, never, never!” He offered no supporting data for his opinion, so here’s my opinion on it:

“In fact, the materials of Dianetics and Scientology have been freely available to anyone world-wide, and Hubbard encouraged “book auditing”, ie anyone anywhere just taking a book and applying it. He rather expected, judging by statements in some of his early lectures, that the would be tested.

There has been NOTHING to stop Dianetics, (and Scientology), being tested in one, ten, hundreds or even thousands of settings, academic and otherwise, around the world.

In his earliest lectures, Hubbard expressed some surprise that no-one took this up.

One simple example: The book “Self Analysis” has been available from the earliest days. It requires no special training to use it, no e-meter training, nada. Anyone can use it.

It contains pages and pages of recall exercises that anyone can do and also apply to others.

There has never been anything to prevent anyone at all from taking that one book and setting up before and after protocols with IQ and ability testing, testing measurable things like reaction time, problem-solving ability, memory, etc.

You ought to be asking “why” no-one picked this up, instead of inventing imaginary prohibitions and non-existent opposition to it.

“Never gonna let this happen”???? There is no-one who gives a d*mn about stopping it from happening, except perhaps the very people in academia, government, and industry who ought to have picked it up and studied it to start with 50-60 years ago, and failed to do so.

Certainly no-one in the Free zone or Independent field really cares to stop testing from happening. I don’t.

And, all the talk of “OT levels” and “how hard it would be” and “trained auditors needed” is way out-reality and out-gradient. The “testing phase” hasn’t even been born yet, much less learned to crawl or walk…. The obvious place to start is at the beginning, with techniques not requiring even an e-meter, or any training.

I have already outlined one approach above, using one book of Hubbard’s.

Yes, as posted else where, “double-blind” studies are difficult or impossible to create for some physical as well as mental/emotional therapies. Single-blind studies are more likely to be done.

The kind of studies I outlined using “Self-Analysis” could certainly be done, and could have been done all along. Apparently no-one in Academia, or anywhere else, ever bothered.

One quibble (otherwise I agree with you):
“a conjecture remains as such until it can be proven by experiment to be true or false.”

‘Conjecture’ is a term used in Mathematics, where for example Fermat’s Last Theorem was a conjecture until it was proved. However Maths is pretty much the exception in this – in most of Science things can’t be proved to be ‘true’. If they have LOTS of evidence for them and hardly any against they are Laws.

Yes, and conjecture is different than “evidence.” Conjecture is useful and you could call it a sub-conclusion or sub-hypothesis. Conjecture is used to discuss and to form arguments but it is not allowed to be evidence such as in a court of law. Conjecture leads one in a direction of thinking so that more research and gathering of evidence can occur toward a hypothesized result in order to prove either true or prove false.

I’d like to note that Hubbard himself stated that the “scio” in scientology went back to an earlier meaning in Indoeuropean languages – the basic meaning is “know” or “knowingness”. Or simply “knowledge”.

What would be the relationship of “scientific knowledge” in the modern sense, with the apparently more global term “knowledge”?

I have always understood “scientology” to mean “study of knowledge” in this broader sense, which I believe is exactly how Hubbard defined it in “The Fundamentals of Thought” as well as in lectures.

Thus I think “scientology” includes all senses of “knowledge” – the testable and the untestable. Is any of it actually ultimately untestable? This is debatable.

One might say “How can you test what a person subjectively ‘knows’?”

Well, may be not so difficult to do. Look at “remote viewing”. It’s “subjectively knows”, but entirely testable. So anything involving knowledge or perception of MEST is testable.

Increases in ability or performance are testable by before and after testing.

Beyond that, it gets tricky. How do you prove someone knows how he feels, or what he thinks?

Quote: “Well, may be not so difficult to do. Look at “remote viewing”. It’s “subjectively knows”, but entirely testable. So anything involving knowledge or perception of MEST is testable.
Increases in ability or performance are testable by before and after testing.
Beyond that, it gets tricky. How do you prove someone knows how he feels, or what he thinks?”

Well put! … yes, in this way remote viewing could be testable but like you say, how do you prove how one feels or what he thinks or is aware of.

But I definitely want to thank you for the ack, and to give you one in return. I start to feel I’m just pissing into the wind….and an ack comes just in time….You have made many good posts here yourself.

In fact this blog has many intelligent contributors of all stripes: skeptic, gnostic, and non-aligned as well, and credit must go to Geir for keeping it so uptone, even-handed, and adhom free.

What about if “truth wins out” and makes Scientology irrevelent? This whole thread was begun with the goal of challenging the status quo, to inquire ways to ascertain the truth. Can we be prepared to “stand the truth?” The pursuit of truth can become a religion as can anything one pursues obsessively. Is the obsessive pursuit of science the method whereby we can find the truth? That’s it’s purpose isn’t it? So we have to ask ourselves whether we want to know the truth or whether we are trying to prove “something.”

@ Chris and Isene: Maybe it could be called “bias” when I say that I think Scientology will prevail if truth wins out, but don’t I have the right to express a “hypothesis” based on my own observations – without it being assumed that I am biased And not ready, willing and able to attack obstacles to truth and accept whatever “truth wins out.” I think I am.

Geir, with all due respect, I get the feeling that in your effort to be sure to not be biased towards Scientology you are actually biased against hypotheses that are “defending” it. Just saying’. 🙂

Sorry, me again. 🙂 I started thinking I may have an MU on “bias” so I looked it up: “a particular tendency or inclination, especially one that prevents impartial consideration of a question.” Well, whaddya know, I’ve been using the first part of the definition (the part before the word “especially”) and maybe others may have had the second part in mind. Just wanted to pass that on for what it’s worth.

Good to note this about the definition of “scio.” As my understanding of Scientology increased, my definition of “scio” evolved toward the word “certainty.” Scientology for me became the “study of certainty.” Learning increases certainty and for me this is very worthy of note… For instance, certainty can mean “mechanical proficiency.” Example: When I began playing guitar I had to look right at my fingers to place them in the right place. Not so much anymore. Example: Most of us can walk, but which of us can describe accurately the exact mechanics which occur in our bodies when we do this? Certainty presents itself in other ways as well and is an interesting subject all to itself. I think it should be included in any study of Scientology auditing effects and phenomena.

Good posting Ivro. There are few of these. Scientology trademarks etc., have been so jealously guarded throughout the years that really science has steered clear of it as a crackpot religion while Scientologists have never dared to challenge any part of it if they wanted to hang around. Scientologists who start out as clear-eyed and curious are soon trained out of that and wait for the “Tech” to be spoon fed to them. We all thought there were “Eloi” in our genetic future, but who of us thought the Eloi would be us?

If everyone on earth were lucky enough to have full personal integrity, nobody would even consider supporting or attacking LRH based upon a generalization, someone else’s opinion and/or status, or the need to be right about something.

The individual with personal integrity would LOOK. And further, they would feel free to share their observations and even live by those observations.

Most people I’ve known don’t have full personal integrity…..myself included. But, there are some with more than others to be sure.

LRH was a dude like the all the rest of us. He smoked. Drank. Divorced. Got angry. Lied. And he helped out when he was under no obligation to do so.

Some of his stuff works from what I’ve seen and experienced. Some of it appears not to have worked for some whom I’ve observed. And some of it is pure science fiction….literally.

I agree with the philosophy behind the “LOOK” principle. However, there are limits to how many things I can look into! Because I can’t personally experience everything that comes to my attention, I use the views of my peers — whether that is looking at scientific research (e.g. http://www.lermanet.com/creed-pearson/dianetics.htm), what my friends might say, or even getting the general gestalt by looking on search engines and the internet. If I get a mostly negative impression of something from a lot of independent sources, I might go with that.

Gestalt:
A physical, biological, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts.

“Can’t see the forest for the trees”, relates to this concept.

The pitfall I see with thinking in “gestalts” is the possibility of overgeneralizing – seeing the forest but overlooking the unique nature of each tree that composes the forest.

Some discrete elements of”scientology” are in the books, but “standard tech” is not in any of the books, it is in the HCOBs. What is in the books is organized and formed into a working gestalt in the lectures. Add the HCOBs and the auditor training you have a workable practical application of the philosophy.

Or something like that.

The “church” is something else again. It is a gestalt that resembles North Korea, the Third Reich, or Stalin’s Soviet Union. Let’s not forget Mao’s China.

It has long since abandoned the gestalt of scientology as it exists in the books, lectures, and HCOBs.

Why not start with trying to reproduce the experiments that Hubbard claims to have done in his research? There are ample claims that can be put to the test.
Off the top of my head I can think about the claim that engrams are recorded at cellular level, during times of unconciousness. Hubbard says that words spoken during medical procedures under sedation can be completely recovered by means of the auditing technique (reverie, if necessary I can provide references). That would be a good start, and failing this test would put alot of the basics of Scientology into question.

I realise it doesn’t work quite like in maths where just one counter example is sufficient to disprove a theory. But isn’t good science based on that you can reproduce the results claimed by your scientist colleagues?

And I don’t mean “Oh all my subjects had gigantic wins when they went clear” or “you cannot measure spiritual wins because they go far beyond the physical world”. I mean comparing the predictions, of which there are plenty, with the actual results.

He did abandon the idea that an engram was literally “a trace on a cell”.

The problem here is that an engram may well exist in “mental space, in the pc’s “mental MEST” universe. This maybe one of the greatest gags we’ve ever pulled on ourselves, which has impacted all of the “scientific thinking” about the “mind/brain problem”, as they like to call it.

I believe it is in in CoHA that Ron happens to mention that “Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time – EXCEPT when one is composed of MEST and the other is composed of “mental MEST”.

As it happens, MEST and “mentalMEST” can co-occupy the same space.

I believe this is why many neurologists and brain researchers believe the brain is the source of thought and other mental activity. They believe this because what they sense and image is coming from the same space the brain occupies. But the source is more often the mind, which is occupying the same space as the brain.

Good joke, ah? We are laughing all the way to the neurosurgery operating room, at this one!

In fact, if you listen to The Factors lectures, which may be as early as 1952-1953 if I remember correctly, Ron says “engrams” are not stored at all, anywhere. He says the being recreates them (mocks them up) as he needs/wants, based on his considerations about it all.

LRH was wrong about two objects not being able to occupy the same space. It was a fundamental error.

The idea of “Mental MEST” is odd. This is not some “other kind of MEST. It is simply MEST created by the person himself without the agreement from others (i.e. they have no agreement with that creation and hence they do no also continuously create it).

I have to give a big “Maybe” on that. What LRH said was that Scientists, physicists and the like who said “Two objects could not occupy the same space at the same time.” This was the scientific idea back in the 1940s, 1950s, etc. I believe for all practical purposes this is still true. Otherwise we would be able to walk our bodies through walls, etc., right?

It was LRH who said the scientists were wrong about this, that two objects COULD occupy the same space at the same time, so long as one or both of them were “mental MEST”. Perhaps I didn’t make it clear in my OP.

As in drills where you “put the thought that__” into some object, etc. His point was that “Mental MEST” is MEST of it’s own kind, memories, thoughts, emotions, mental constructs of all kinds were REAL – they were not”imaginary”,or “unreal”as some liked to think. They actually have substance, are composed of something.

So as in your example, if you create something and it is not agreed upon by anyone else, WHERE is it? It can be where ever you place it – in the chair, the table, a tree, a wall,or a brain — your brain or someone else’s brain, it doesn’t matter. The point is, it can occupy the same space as another object, contrary to what some scientists believe. Hubbard conjectured those kind of objects are made of “thinner” or”finer”material, which is consistent with older teachings that other worlds interpenetrated with our own, made out of more ‘subtle’ materials and energies. Most recently, Gurdjieff stated that “ideas arematerial”, meaning they are actually composed of some kind of substance.

The point I was trying to make, is that the “brain” is not the source of the “mind”, but both are of the same source. The joke is that by placing the mind in the same space as the brain, people can be fooled into thinking the brain is the source of thought or contains “thinking”. It does not, in my view. That’s an illusion created by them occupying the same space.

I think when LRH said that no two objects could occupy the same space, he was speaking in a certain “context” as Maria called it (in her post near the end of this thread).

In another “context” LRH stated that mental energy was actually no different from physical energy – just a higher, finer wave length. (I believe one reference for this is Understanding the E-Meter, which actually just quotes other sources.)

In the above sub-thread it seems like Maria’s idea that context is “often an underlying source of contention and unwarrented dispute” might be applicable. She described how “truth relies on context or the surrounding data/ content/information” and “context is often an unstated parameter of scientific inquiry and application.” (She really rocked on that post!)

The correct statement is “Two objects cannot occupy the same space AT THE SAME TIME.”

This was definitely the scientific view prior to 1950 and even later when I was growing up. Has Science changed it’s mind about this?

At this time, I do not see how Hubbard was wrong about this. For all practical purposes, I believe this to be true. Two material objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

What do you think mind, thought, mental image pictures, ideas, etc to be composed of, then?

How is “mental MEST” any more of a conjecture than plain old MEST? They have equal reality (or unreality) to me.
I do not understand your worldview on this.

If I look at a mental image picture I create , “where” or in what space does it exist?

To me, it exists in my “mental space”, in the space of my mind, which I also create, and which is distinct from MEST space in which my body exists, or the house my body lives in. But the two can interpenetrate, can exist in and occupy the same space at the same time.

That’s the basis of processes such as “Whatever you think is wrong with you, have it be wrong with that other person,” and dozens of other processes in which you put thoughts, feelings, maladies, diseases, any kind of mock-up etc into MEST objects.

Hubbard was in error on this. Science had this figured out by around 1925 (see Bose-Einstein condensate and Bosons in Wikipedia).

It happens all the time that Bosons occupy the same space at the same time.

As for “mental MEST” or other MEST, I see no difference except for who is creating it. You create all of the MEST universe that you are able to perceive every 5*10⁻44 seconds. And so do I and every other participant of this game we can call MEST. If you and I create our separate reality, then you and I both create that reality of MEST. Same when you create your own that nobody else creates. It’s a gradient scale of how many are creating something. The more beings involved in creating someting, the stronger the agreement and the more solid the MEST. I view this as very simple.

I’ve been away for a couple of days. OK, bosons.
First, here are some references from CoHA:
1.)
R1-10 Occupying the same space

“AGREEMENT WITH THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE BRINGS ABOUT THE CONSIDERATION ON THE PART OF THE PRECLEAR THAT TWO THINGS CANNOT OCCUPY THE SAME SPACE.

It is this basic rule which keeps the physical universe ‘stretched’.
It is not, however,true that two things cannot occupy the same space. It is particularly untrue when the two ‘things’ are an object and a thetan, since a thetan can occupy the same space any object is occupying.”
2.)
Three Universes
“One’s own universe, and
The Material universe,the common meeting ground of us all, and
The ‘other fellow’s universe(s). Actually a class of universes, for he and all the class of ‘other fellows’ have universes of their own.”
3.)
A Summary of Scientology, #12:
“The primary condition of any universe is that two spaces, energies or objects must not occupy the same space.”

OK, so on to ‘bosons’. I don’t believe we are talking about bosons, here, and I doubt Hubbard was, either. “Everything” is not made of bosons and only bosons, and there is some doubt in my mind that a boson is an ‘object’ in the first place, in any common meaning of the word ‘object’.
1925,you say? Fine, but I knew nothing of ‘bosons’ and I would guess 99.9% of the world’s population have never heard of bosons, or have no idea of the meaning of the word.

So it would seem that ‘boson’ might be an agreed upon reality of a small minority here on Earth…. Which leads to the question, how ‘real’ is that? If the vast majority of the beings here are not continuously creating it, does it actually have the status of being part of the MEST universe, as distinct from an ‘actuality’ existing only in your own universe, or yours and a few others?

So that’s what I mean by “mental MEST”. It is what your own universe is composed of, your own mockups, thoughts, feelings, ideas etc, not anyone else’s.

Each of the other fellows also has his own universe. Each universe is distinct from those of others, and exists in it’s own space.

In your own universe you can create or cease creating as much or as little as you wish of anything, instantaneously. These universes are ‘mental universes’ composed of ‘mental mest’ because they are of the mind and thought, as discrete from the Physical Universe(MEST universe).

The ‘mest’ in them may,very ultimately, be the same as the mest of the physical universe, but for all practical purposes they are not the same for us now. You know who owns your own universe – you do. This is not so clear about the physical universe – ownership is of the parts of that is very confused. Who created what, in the physical universe?

In conclusion, there is more than one universe. You have your own, I have mine, and so on. These universes, as I see it now, can co-occupy locations in the MEST universe we share. Thus two or more ‘objects’ can indeed occupy the same space at the same time.

So although Hubbard may have been in error in some very specialized sense, he, like Newton, was also at the same time, not in error at all. Newtonian mechanics still ‘works’ for many things, no?

And it appears that error and truth can occupy the same person at the same time….

Bosons are as real as anything. Hey, we are talking about light here among other things. Bosons are objects. And they can indeed occupy the same space. It happens all the time. And, Hubbard was in error on this one – and it does not matter if he knew about it or not. Newton was in error about gravity. The point is that LRH put it forth as axiomatic truth that two bjects cannot occupy the same space. I wonder if that has any real technical implications beyond this error.

Geir said
“If you and I create our separate reality, then you and I both create that reality of MEST. Same when you create your own that nobody else creates. It’s a gradient scale of how many are creating something. The more beings involved in creating something, the stronger the agreement and the more solid the MEST.”

That’s pretty similar to what I’m saying from a different viewpoint.
In CoHA he has a triangle he calls the “Triangle of Certainty of Awareness” The three corners are 1. Own universe, 2. MEST universe, 3. Other fellow’s universes. This also has a gradient scale.

It’s easy to mock up and unmock your own creations in your own universe. You made them, you own them. It’s not so easy to unmock parts of the MEST universe. It was made by many many beings over a long time and it’s material has been stirred and blended and mixed very much…. Not so easy to as-is….

Well, no, not to me and probably not to 99.9% of the people on Earth, unless by some chance “bosons”are a different word for a common concept that is denoted by other words in common use.

I have never seen a boson that I know of; if “light” is bosons, OK. But is light an ‘object’?

There are scales of reality. Perhaps wherever you are, bosons are real to you; they are not real to me, in the same way perceptible MEST objects like bodies walls cars tables keyboards etc are real.

Hubbard may or may not have been in some way “in error” on what he said, but the point is, I have no evidence of it. In the MEST universe as I know it, two MEST objects(like two chairs, my physical hand and the wall,etc) cannot occupy the same space at the same time, but my own thoughts and mental creations can occupy the same space at the same time as MEST objects. I can to some extent occupy the same space as a MEST object, as well as considerations, emotional states, etc; that is what exteriorization/interiorization is after all.

But in the usual course of things, my plates don’t sink down through the table, my butt doesn’t sink through the chair seat etc. so in practical terms I see nothing wrong with Hubbard’s statement. It seems to describe the way the MEST universe works quite well.

And you have not spoken to the concept of the various universes. I like to think of them as discrete.

If you are indeed creating the MEST universe moment to moment, then how much control do you have over it’s nature and constitution? Are you actually creating it, or creating a duplicate of it which you perceive?

I don’t know the answer, you might because of having handled some of these things in going up the Bridge. The Bridge is supposed to be the way towards 8-8008. It is a question of a person’s own universe vs. the physical universe, in the person’s own experience.

Around 99,999999% of the Earth’s population have never seen the inside of my house. To them it does not exist?

You may be able to defend yourself out of the corner you are currently in in this debate. It remains a fact that LRH was in error on this point. Let that be as it is, because that is not important. What is important is whether this error has any significant impact on other parts of Scientology.

On the other point of the debate; Creation of the universe; There is no spoon. You create it as you see it. I see looking and creation as two sides of the same coin. And it seems that the wavefunction collapse backs this up.

Thus is the definition I use to understand Hubbard’s formulation that this rule is what keeps the universe “stretched”, and I have to say I do not think he was in error about this.

Two solid objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

Subatomic “particles” can be”the objects of study” of physics, but they are not “objects” in the common sense of the word.

We are talking about agreements here, after all, and scientology is all about what a person is able to perceive.

I tend to assume Hubbard knew what he was talking about, until it’s proven otherwise. Beyond that, I have no urge to defend him, just to duplicate what he is saying. In this case, it seems a divergent understanding of the simple definition of a word caused an error.

I’ve reviewed some of my posts here on the subject of “Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time” and I see that I’ve been in errot in some ways.For one thing, LRH said right in the quote I posted that it was not true:

1.)
R1-10 Occupying the same space

“AGREEMENT WITH THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE BRINGS ABOUT THE CONSIDERATION ON THE PART OF THE PRECLEAR THAT TWO THINGS CANNOT OCCUPY THE SAME SPACE.

It is this basic rule which keeps the physical universe ‘stretched’.
It is not, however,true that two things cannot occupy the same space. It is particularly untrue when the two ‘things’ are an object and a thetan, since a thetan can occupy the same space any object is occupying.”

It appears I was mixing some of my own (mis)interpretations an speculations about “the mind” into the discussion.

Now, why should Scientology get a free pass as regards to this scientific standard? Why should we believe L. Ron Hubbard when he says that his Auditing Technology works? We shouldn’t. It must be tested.

Scientology never got a free pass. People have been calling for evidence and, starting with Scientology’s first clear, Sonia Bianca, Scientology has failed to deliver. With Hubbard’s cooperation, Dianetics was scientifically tested in the 1950s when the premise for engrams was debunked. See here: http://www.lermanet.com/creed-pearson/dianetics.htm – along with several other scientific papers, one as early as 1950, Hubbard’s creation was quickly dismissed as pseudo-scientific ramblings. This year’s New Yorker article has again provided evidence that Hubbard’s claim that he “discovered” Dianetics while healing his war injuries was a lie. There were no war injuries.

Try explaining the details to a Scientology apologist and you are met with a wall of denial and conspiracy theory: psychiatrists and big-pharma are working behind the scenes to destroy what they perceive as a threat; no one but a Scientologist is capable of understanding let alone testing the subject; Hubbard was a secret agent and his real war history has been purged; the list goes on, goal posts are moved, and anecdotes abound as if they somehow counter the science and historical fact while Scientologists still hip-hip-hooray. Then, even if you do get through all that, the last line of defence becomes: “its a religion which requires faith, it worked for me, the idea of body thetans is not unique to Scientology, and, yes, the OTIII volanoes did not exist 75 million years ago, but the story is allegorical . . . ”

The simple fact is, science and scientology cannot exist side by side. From the engrams in Dianetics to the volcanoes in OTIII, its all about belief – a belief which is engendered in adherents via hypnotic-like trance states induced via auditing and reinforced by fear – a fear that Scientology really is mankind’s last hope of escaping the prison planet.

None of that is actually “scientology” as defined by Hubbard; at best, some of it is “para-scientology” which is where Hubbard placed dianetics, past lives, implants, the concept of engrams, and a whole lot else.

The rest of that stuff you brought in is Church propaganda which has nothing to do with “scientology” in it’s purest meaning. It is, as Geir so kindly called it, your bias. I call it propaganda.

I assume you are the person who now posts on ESMB as “Infinite”; if so you know, or ought to know, what I am talking about.

Blip: I agree that Scnists should not make up so much noise about pschychiatry and the pharma mafia. I agree that they should shut down on making a big hip hip hurray regarding Hubbard. I agree that Hubbard probably had dark points in his past, but to nail him up the wall because of it is an altered importance. I personal give a shit that he claimed that SCN is religion or science, although i can follow his arguments given on the Phoenix lectures. But I agree with Hubbard that its absolute useless to argue about the subject with militant opponents which don´t have a clue of the subject.

To me, neither Scientology matters nor Hubbard. What matters is the knowledge that can benefit me, you and others. Does such knowledge exists in a subject called Scientology, or can be derived from it? Well, that interests me.

What is Science? It is knowledge. What is the purpose of Science? It is to isolate the basic principles that underlie a sector of knowledge. How is science defined? It is science to the degree those principles can be shown to be workable on a repetitive basis.

What principles are there in Scientology that can be shown to be workable on a repetitive basis?

The first principle that comes to my mind is LOOKING (this is dealt with but not emphasized in Scientology).

The second principle that comes to my mind is “LOOKING MAY BE IMPROVED BY DIRECTING IT.” Here we have thousands of processes. Here we have an effort to apply those processes in a certain sequence (the bridge). Furthermore, there is the effort to customize this sequence to a person (case supervision).

The third principle that appears axiomatic to me is that ONE SHOULD FOLLOW THE ATTENTION OF THE PERSON IN ORDER TO RESOLVE THE CASE. It would appear that one should make a person more able to follow where his attention wants to take him to resolve his case. This can be done by removing the distractions and strengthening a person’s persistence and perseverence.

How this principle is applied in Scientology needs a closer look and scientific validation.

In 1950, Hubbard started out with the theory of engrams. Thus, he guided the preclear’s attention toward incidents of pain and unconsciousness. Failing that he guided pc’s attention towards incidents of loss. And, failing that he let a person talk about his unwanted condition to unburden it enough to find incidents of pain, unconsciousness and loss.

The basic theory that Hubbard had was that one only needs to get a person to look at incidents of pain and unconsciousness in his past and that will take care of all his troubles. This was Dianetics. This theory only had limited success. Hubbard then supposed that the lack of success was due to the person not able to access all the incidents of pain and unconsciousness in his past. Was this supposition correct?

I don’t think so. Hubbard created a whole Bridge to prove that supposition. Has the success been 100%? I don’t think so. Some success is there but it has been limited. Various reasons have been forwarded for this success being limited, such as, PTSness, lack of correct application, etc. but unlimited success is still quite elusive.

In think that this LOOK above is pretty scientific. Hubbard could not crack the nut of man’s troubles as he had set out for himself to accomplish.

Vinaire, you and others here have commented on the “limited success” of Scientology, or “it worked on some, didn’t work on others” kind of comments. These are generalities and I wish someone would give specifics, and what the specifics they give are based on – i.e. how do you know that?

I myself have the “impression” that Scientology has worked on most people it’s been applied to, and I still hold out on the belief/hope that totally correct tech, correctly applied should get 100% results. But I’ll admit my experience with this has been mostly in the Church, where you probably don’t even hear about the “failures,” or if you did there would be plenty of justifications given.

Hubbard was very critical of the subject of psychoanalysis for it taking years to train competent psychoanalysts. How long does it take to train a flawless auditor? Do we have another outpoint here?

A tech that would clear the planet has to be able to spread around the planet as a grass roots movement. I don’t think Scientology meets that criterion because of its complexity.

The complexity of Scientology can now be compared with the complexity of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry. At least, Psychiatry is able to make extreme type of cases functional, which Scientology won’t even dare to touch.

In terms of hours spent, I think getting a trained and Interned, capable Class VIII auditor probably takes just as long as to produce a competent psychoanalyst – IF there is such an animal!

Psychiatry in the USA dumped psychoanalysis as a workable model in favor of the “biopsychiatric” approach of using pharmaceuticals andECT, back in the1980s. Why? Psychoanalytical approaches were not suitable for most patients coming to psychiatrists, and psychiatric treatment was taking too long and producing few positive results. The trend towards “evidence-based medicine” had started, and psychoanalytically-based psychiatric approaches couldn’t provide the evidence of workability.

Decent results were obtained sometimes only after lengthy hospitalizations which the insurance industry was screaming about.

Biological psychiatry promised quick results the insurance companies could afford to pay for. In fact, much of the pharmaceutical intervention has proven to be no better than placebo.

But back to the main point – al though it takes a lot of hours to get trained as a Class VIII auditor, or even a Class VI, Scientology does in fact contain everything necessary to have a very effective “grassroots” field going – it’s just that the so-called “Church”has made sure it never happened.

All that’s needed is an basic understanding of Dianetics concepts and the Self-Analysis book, and people could co-audit with those to great benefit.

A Comm Course would be good too, not absolutely necessary, but it would help speed things a long if both parties could implement a good 2-way comm cycle.

Hubbard suggested that some co-audits ought to have 3 people working together, because of problems that could arise if, say, a husband and wife tried to audit each other.

But in fact, the Co$ shut down and has been trying to stamp out of existence all co-auditing for probably 20 years now and have been successful at stamping them out. At a higher level, the Class VII courses were shut down long ago and Class VIII auditors are generally not produced anymore.

Oh, to tie this in with psychoanalysis, I’d like to say that for my money, a Class VIII auditor could produce a good result (such as a Life Repair) in a short period of time probably more than 80% of the time, compared to a psychoanalyst who might only get a good result with a patient rarely and only over a period of years.

For those unfamiliar with the general line-up of Standard Tech auditor training, it goes something like this:
The Academy levels, then the Hubbard Standard Dianetics Course or the equivalent, then the St.Hill Special Briefing Course, which is HUGE and produces a Class VI auditor, then the Class VIII Course.

To do all this we are talking about thousands of hours of study, drilling, auditing, (hopefully co-auditing), then Internships for each course.

It’s easily equivalent to becoming a doctor or getting a PhD.

So to my mind, a lot of the discussion about “tech” that occurs on these blogs is conjecture, when it is done by folks who have not done the training and gotten a real grasp of the tech overall.

Thanks, you and I are both saying it’s our “impression” that Scientology works and why/where we got that impression. And for those who have a different impression, fine – I’m just curious where they got it. I’m going to TR3 it when I get the chance. 😉

To be clear, I’m not asking for “proof,” obviously, but I get that you think Scientology doesn’t work very well and that there are more failures than successes. And I’m just wondering where you got that overall impression – what do you base it on?

Not to be harsh, but the logistical problem of spreading Scientology is damn sure not the complex training required of auditors. The problem of “spreading” Scientology is that it has long since fallen off the Church’s admin scale. And again, Scientology never had as its goal the treatment of psychiatric patients, I’d like you to expound on why you make that comparison? Scientology doesn’t need to come anywhere near close to 100% success rate. It really just needs to be very helpful and not muck about screwing people up and leaving them twisting in the wind. In fact, its defense of its supposedly 100% workable tech is a complete PR nightmare. If the Church of Scientology wanted to “clear” the planet it could adjust its admin scale accordingly and proceed to train auditors and set up co-auditing. I know I’ve drifted off the thread here, I do have buttons left over about the Church’s admin scale and these comments about the “complexity” of Scientology sets me off. For a subject which seeks to confront something so complicated as the human experience, learning Scientology seems shit simple to me. I do hold the opinion that most of humanity is not up to the awareness characteristic of “need of change” for if it were, then a number of disciplines would begin to bite better than they do at present.

Chris, I basically agreed with all you said here. But we should always be clear in differentiating between the “Church”- and Scientiology – and I think you inadvertently equated them a bit, in part of your post.

The Church has a bad record; Scientology itself doesn’t really have a record yet, IMO. But it may actually be given a decent chance now in the Independent field.

Well, I do think that application of Scientology is too complex to make it a vehicle for a grassroots movement. Even when we have Scientology movement outside the Church, I do not think that it is capable of becoming a grassroots movement without further simplification. E-meter introduces unnecessary complexity.

I consider it to be a shortcoming of Scientology to not be able to address psychiatric patients. A universal approach would treat spirit, mind and body as a single system, instead of trying to handle everything through mind or spirit only.

I don’t think Scientology has any business putting down psychiatry if it cannot handle the cases that psychiatry is addressing and handling. The propaganda that psychiatry cannot handle cases is just propaganda. Scientology is spewing out lot of false data about psychiatry. If there are abuses in psychiatry then they are being addressed from what I have observed. There are abuses in Scientology too, and I would like to see Scientology addressing them to improve itself.

If Scientology doesn’t need to come anywhere near close to 100% success rate then it should mind its own business and stop invalidating and putting down other practices. It should be focusing on cleaning up its own activities. If you want to differentiate Scientology from the Church of Scientology, then you should also differentiate psychiatric tech from APA and corrupt practitioners.

Is Scientology capable of accomplishing what it claims? The proof is in the pudding.

Drum and Ivro are excellent skeptics here and have pointed out inconsistencies in the claims by those who made comments such as ‘Hubbard could clear people in 1948 using book…” or “Ron didn’t ask us to believe him on his word”.
If any of you in the courseroom would realize the overpowering suggestive elements present: the huge photo of the Cheshire grin of its founder, the ‘Clear’ bracelet resembling the rare blood type ones, the peer competition of stating your ‘wins’ after the course period, the “flunk” verdict by your coaching twin, the tedious chart for bridge to ‘total Freedom’ with its levels of status as if the higher the number, the greater the awe, the offered financial incentives of PERSUADING your friends and family to buy therapy hours on blind brotherly faith (because you’re their blood sibling), etc. It’s a real bandwagon that unfortunately casts aside the need for testing for its scientific veracity. I am afraid that the ecstasy of completing a grade or experiencing a higher spiritual state has gotten blurred and confused here. Just watch how defensive the broke consumer justifies his exhorbitant purchase of his precious therapy hours on some reverse equity or mortgage refinancing plan. It has got to work because I am so gullible and therapy starved! Save me!

3) the peer competition of stating your ‘wins’ after the course period – this was voluntary in my Academy … it was not a competition whatsoever.

4) the “flunk” verdict by your coaching twin – gee, my kid got a flunk on his driving test, I flunked an exam or 2 when in school. It seems you have been flunked when you shouldn’t have been or got away with being passed when you should have been flunked.

5) the offered financial incentives of PERSUADING your friends … Many reg’s or salesmen get commissions … is this so wrong. Persuading? Yep … much better if the person decides for himself that maybe it can enhance his life. Blind brotherly faith? I think not for most self-determined individuals.

Don’t get me wrong – there are some real goofs in the church, but your depiction is off the mark. Yes, you seem to have some real charge … and it appears that you were intimidated – that’s unfortunate. There are good people around.

Yes Charles, “blurred” indeed, but this thread has to do with the objective truth of Scientology. A subject with which you have much familiarity, don’t you? I have read you that you’ve studied not only Scientology and other disciplines, disciplines that don’t claim specific results or scientific method and aside from our shared out-rudiment and bias toward the Church of Scientology, and setting aside the data and “science” of this thread, what does your “certainty” tell you about your study of and your application of Scientology. (sorry for that run-on sentence-I hope I asked a question in there somewhere)

Book one will produced something than nothing. It will help from nothingness to something. I haven’t done any Book one auditing; I have not experience doing it. Maybe in $centology, they down played Book 1 and replaced it with e-meter auditing so the $$$$ chest box would be full of $$$ in the Orgs and to make students to empty their pockets. Who created the system of $cientology, fish trap net? That was very smartly and very clever done. Who was behind it? It must have been more than one person. If Ron has the ability to do, then anybody has the same abilities to do.
Ron says, you can’t self audit; it will introvert you and harm you; and you get keyed in etc.; then who audited him? He can’t have created the science by himself; and should not take sole the credit for it. I would like to see more names that created the whole science. Did he steal from the co-workers? Maybe he lied about how harmful it is to self-audit; because he did it himself and wanted the science for himself and use his ego to make lots of money for himself. So, which one of them is it; the first one, or the latter one? Can he really claim monopoly?
How long did it take to write all those existing materials and do all lectures? According to what I heard he was a madman; his reactive mind must have played on him. He must have been keyed in a lot. The analytical shut down; so how can he produce so much by himself; he can’t be the only one producing. Time doesn’t wait.
He claimed that you could go clear from Book 1. Did he go clear to become a madman? He definitely didn’t live up to what it was suppose to be; or did his mad man personality and acts display sign of deds, dedex, overts; and withholds?
Something is not adding up!
Ron used somebody else’s copy writes law; or used their ideas; to make his own copy writes materials. He picked from other people’s minds. He didn’t invent it from not researching other people’s materials and doingness. He didn’t sit down and did just something from nothingness to something alone in a solitary environment. No way he did it all by himself. Science and God go together. If God is missing you have superstition.

There is no evidence that Scientology was created out of Dianetics because of $$$$ consideration alone. Scientology was supposed to serve as a solution to many difficulties encountered with Dianetics application.

Self-auditing can introvert you only if you start digging into your mind. But if you simply let the mind un-stack itself naturally with auditing commands then there is no danger. I am afraid, Hubbard did not emphasize this point. This was a serious omission on his part.

I would like you to really look on your own and recognize if you are using any fixed ideas in your computation.

From what I understand LRH did “let the mind unstack itself naturally from auditing commands.” That is what the meter reads are about – they show what is real to the pc and what he can confront and thus not “dig into the mind” and become introverted.

I understand auditing up the Bridge as Marildi does, at least up through Clear. I have no comment on the levels above Clear, and haven’t done them.

Back in the 1970s, among the people I knew, “digging into the mind” would have been considered very poor auditing to say the least; the very idea smacks of ‘enforcement’ and a failure to obnose and grant beingness to the preclear, a big no-no.

It borders on ‘black dianetics’ and ‘reverse scientology’ as the current CoS practices them – basically invalidation of the person.

Certainly not good auditing. It could come about as a result of poor training thus MU on the part of the auditor, or it could be more sinisterly, done deliberately as I believe it is sometimes done by some Flag “auditors” today.

Where did you get the idea that “forcing the pc” was part of standard practice?

I have always agreed with this but I may be wrong. My general impression of the workability and success rate of Scientology has always been high. Now that I look with more focus on being objective, I have what I would term a more realistic view than before. I always thought LRH was “unstacking” the mind by addressing the low-hanging fruit of mental travail and using the e-meter to locate that low-hanging fruit. I’ve read some comments here stating that the Bridge and more specifically the individual processes don’t work that way — Not my experience, though. I think that I can draw a “fractal” looking diagram depicting this. Because I can do that doesn’t make my explanation more “scientifically” correct but if others here have a different idea of how the mind should be unstacked, maybe they would post some examples?

Chris, I pretty much responded on a previous post today, to what you say just above – it’s
s-o-m-e-w-h-e-r-e on this damn, cumbersome and maze-like (but challenging and great fun) blog thread. As LRH said, “charge=interest” (= size 🙂 ).

I like your ack. *lool Let me say some more words on it. I am not a researcher nor trained in scientific methodology. I did not reach a level of Scientific thinking. So from the bottom of my thinking as
a simple mechanic, and later progressing through data series policy I give you my view: LRH probably used heuristic research method to isolate the axioms of DN and Scn. I basicly dont care HOW he did it. He self stated that data series tech made him possible to detect bank and become exterior to it. Well thats great. I as a student and “consumer” must not have him prove that he acted scientific in a meaning of a “WOG” researcher. I experienced that axiom 28 (communication) works. And I understand that auditing commcycle is a direct development from axiom 28 and that it produces results by straightening out old confused comm-cycles. So there must be truth in the axiom, even if its relative truth just applicaple in this unviverse. Wether the tech works 10,50 or 98% and getting gains in the same percentage is a total different discussion. ARC

To Sidewinder and Isene,
Personally, I am in a “renaissance” period. I both learned and was helped by Scientology. That’s a subjective fact. My years in the Church of Scientology was a PTS situation that worked in direct opposition to the gains that I was making. Being out of the Church and with the suppression evaporated and feeling “rehabilitated” on the progress that I did make studying Scientology — I feel like a new man. I’ve gotten experience and always want to remember in the future to follow more closely my own code of honor and to keep my integrity. And in my 3rd dynamic I feel at the beginning of a renaissance period as well. Everything seems possible again. Scientology makes sense to me. It always did. And I feel that any subject anywhere and especially Scientology should now and always be open to constructive and un-biased scrutiny. This is how Scientology will ultimately be saved or forgotten and this is how we as a vile and violent and beautiful race of humanoids have an opportunity to move successfully into our futures. If not, then not.

A major barrier in scientific progress is negative bias. History is ridden with negative bias against subjects that warrants testing. The negative bias from several critics in this thread exemplifies this.

Of course positive bias plays an almost equal role in hindering scientific progress. Any bias is counter-productive when seeking truth.

I don’t quite agree with that. You can easily construe a positivistic or negativistic approach in science as “bias”, yet both methods have the right to exist in science and indeed are part of good science.

Testing and research is always “in a direction.” I’m saying it’s going in a direction to be going somewhere. “Bias” has to do with the researcher’s fixation on his experimenting concluding a preconceived result. So is the difference between bias and hypothesis a matter of character or integrity or what of the looker?

Quicksilver – I believe that too. But listen to us: “I would hate to go thru this life thinking that what I see is all that there is.”
THAT bias becomes a roadblock to just enjoying the hell out of any extant game we find ourselves playing. We should watch out for this one!

Okay, you got me to look. And it seems plausible (very) that I am looking at your comments with my own bias and am therefore more “sensitive” to some of them than to others. It’s a really nice win, Geir. I will have to look at this more. 🙂 🙂 🙂

What you say here makes me very happy, Miraldi. You are able to look at possibilities rather than cling to your opinion. It’s what I am trying to do. It’s hard to remain an unbiased looker, but it sure helps the quest for truth. Sometimes I catch myself with a vested interest in one of my opinions. Then I have to re-look and keep that desire for it to turn out one way or another out of the picture. And Geir, I think this is what you are saying by being a “work in progress”. So glad you are.

“And that is why we need voices in support of the true seekers – those who are unbiased. I am working hard to attain that state myself. And it is damn hard. But needed.”

Amen!

Wheat from chaff sorters needed. (And, where does one apply for the job?)

We need some useful definition of ‘wheat’ and ‘chaff’ surely.

Most of us, who have been scientologists, can agree (or KNOW) that wheat exists — however it may be defined. 🙂

Most of us, who have walked away from scientology (as practiced in the Church), can also agree that chaff exists — or we wouldn’t have walked away.

Every process, ‘these days,’ is supposed to end on a ‘feel good’ note. F/N and Tone Arm in acceptable range, PC indicators generally positive. If not, folder red-tagged and auditor crammed.

Splendid. “Feel good” is good, as pharmaceutical companies can attest and can have a very positive effect on the bottom line.

“Major actions” are also supposed to ‘feel good’ but are claimed to have a more specific effect as well. Testable? (As opposed to ‘attest-able’?)

I was ‘blown-out’ by ARC S/W and entirely willing and eager to attest. WOW! But — what does, “Knows he won’t get any worse” mean? Forty years later, I assure you, I am _physically_ ‘worse’. I can also detect a certain loss of mental agility. Spiritually? Yeah — sure. Still good; certainly no ‘worse’.

Grade 0. “Still freely communicate?” (And etc.) You bet.

Thing is, I didn’t expect (or even want) much at all from these ‘lower level’ processes. As a big SF reader, I was interested in the OT levels and, patiently or not, was entirely willing to jump through the necessary hoops to get to them. La la.

That I got results I didn’t even know I needed, want, or strongly expect to get seems kinda important. At bottom, it indicates I probably wasn’t just fooling myself — pulling the wool over my own eyes. Seems rather likely that ‘something there’ helped me create something valuable.

With these lower level processes, my personal intent was just to experience/enjoy them.

I was long ‘overrun’ on Grade 0. Found the individual processes vastly entertaining. (Yes, Expanded Grades.)

Later, another auditor, using the very dubiously regarded (by me) ‘date/locate’ procedure, found the moment of release on the Grade and I had, owned, and attested to the full E/P of the Grade. Was rather a nice surprise. And I could attest, again, today.

There are likely plenty who perhaps attested falsely; others who attested truly, to the best of their knowledge but later lost the E/P and probably some who now have and retain those abilities but no longer attribute their presence to the efficacy of the processes then used.

It’s rather a mixed bag. Still, I’m pretty sure there really was some wheat there. I’d like to see it sorted out — the wheat from the chaff.

…and Gary York – “sorting wheat from chaff?
Isn’t this exactly what you just wrote? And didn’t I think to myself, “what a good job you did!” You ARE a sorter. I think it is a very good indicator indeed that so many years after, you can still re-experience some stellar moments of your processing! You did make those grades. You’ve life still in you Gary! Go harvest some more wheat! Use your time with gusto! Life is really BIG and that Bridge to Total Freedom? Well, maybe its a Bridge to sub-Total Freedom. Anyway we should continue, shouldn’t we?

I believe that Data Series provides the technology to separate wheat from chaff, but that technology is not enough by itself. To evaluate any area one needs to really familiarize oneself with that area, else one may be looking at outpoints of one’s own making. Those are called “errors” in Data Series.

The other important factor is patience. Many a times one needs to look, look, and look before the answer starts appearing. It does not help to be short at other people. Misemotions need to be kept out from looking same as bias.

On this blog, there are some who simply do not want look at any outpoints to do with tech or with Hubbard. On ESMB, there are some who do not want to look at any plus points to do with tech or with Hubbard. Both of these attitudes are outpoints in themselves.

Looking is a simple concept, but it is not so simple to apply. I learn more about looking every day. 🙂

A new trend that I find inspiring is the Scientific study of the effects of spiritual practices on the brain.

Buddhist techniques have gotten some great press and some interesting results. The practice of Tonglen has a humble champion in Matthieu Ricard, The French Translator of the Dalai Lama.

Ricard’s brain during Tonglen practice shows gamma waves so strong that he is unofficially dubbed “The Happiest Man in the World.” Gamma waves are the best direct indicator of well being that can be measured.

“If you want to generate a particular state of mind you do what it takes.” – Matthieu Ricard.

Agree. Why not! You can probably buy that whole rig on eBay for like $9 including shipping from China! But seriously, any additional level of understanding into “why” a person wins doing Scientology processing surely could be put to use to learn better “how” to win some more. And if the whole experiment is a bust, then well, back to the drawing board. If coordinating and harmonizing gamma waves is a good thing, then why wouldn’t a truth seeker want to know about it?

“We now know in fact that culture rewires our brains. Neuro-plasticity gives incredible hope, and I’ll give you just one story. But it also tells us that this resilient brain which is emerging is also a more vulnerable brain. It’s very sensitive to what other people and other brains do to it. And we are very influenced by our technologies.”

(Regarding the brain as a computer)

“Well it’s all much more complicated than that. But this notion of the brain as a computer gave rise to what I call a neurological nihilism. Because it meant that those born with brain deficits, brain limitations had to live with them – in all cases. It meant that those who sustained brain trauma had to live with it in all cases. Because machines do glorious things but they don’t grow new parts the don’t rewire themselves. In medical school I was taught all these things and that there are no new cells in the brain. And anyone who had a normal brain and who hoped to improve it or maintain it as they aged was probably wasting their time. And above all human nature which was seen to emerge from the brain was also necessarily seen as fixed in so far as we saw the brain to be fixed.

The video on Buddhist Matthieu is interesting. After I left Scientology, I had the fortunate craving for more answers about existence and such. Each school serms to have provided for me a good field of contrast to measure my life against. I was able to digest (and eliminate) some of what I learned in Scientology in this new space. I experienced other religions such as Bahai which had a significant deal of greater tolerance for beliefs of others. Then after leaving this great religion, I reached for Seth, then Tolle, followed by Abraham channeling, all of which were rich with wisdom, I felt, compared to rigid Scientology. I didn’t find the relevancy of Xenu and the volcanoes in my life one bit all along! Lately, I’ve studied Shamanism because I was curious as an artist about the source and content of my dreaming and imagination. It is really feeling much better for me on a personal level. Ever since I left Scientology through all this adventure, did I not encounter one discord. Nothing was confidential or “ethics” risk or forbidden or expensive. This forum is indeed healthier than most where we can safely speak our inquisitive mind.

Agree Charles. But for me, growing up and maturing in a “dangerous” world was a fact of life. When I became a Scientologist, I felt that in an HGC auditing room I had at last found one safe place. And I also felt that the case supervisor was the best friend I had in the world. Years later, I would come to address the auditing room with “courage” but with little hope of there happening an interaction designed to help me. Years and years later, I was helped in the independant field by the Thomas’s and once again felt the warmth of the sun. Off-topic comments for me to make on a “scientific” thread but I want to say I agree that we need to be able to speak our minds freely without fear and we need to grant one another beingness and not to forget our lessons and to continue as seekers of truth.

“By modern scientific standards, a conjecture remains as such until it can be proven by experiment to be true or false. This is aptly summed up in the motto of The Royal Society of London; “Nullius in verba” (take nobody’s word for it)”

This may be true in the purely physical sciences where variables are utterly controllable. It is not true in the “soft” sciences at all, such as psychology and sociology, nor is it true in large systems studies such as geology, and it is not true in the purely theoretical sciences that examine dimensionality for example.

In reality, the current state of science acknowledges information and theories derived from many different methods including abductive, reductive, inductive, quantitative, observational, statistical, qualitative methods, case studies, probabilities, statistics, and so on. There is NO standard scientific method per se except within a specific discipline such as quantum mechanics or geology for example.

I am all for intellectual honesty. But I also think that honesty has to begin with the understanding that “science” is far from infallible and that it must be undertaken with full understanding of the limitations and inconsistencies of various methods of gaining and interpreting knowledge.

I am also all for scientific inquiry. But to pin it to one school of scientific methodology and insist that it is the only valid metholodogy will inevitably suppress or malign knowledge that could be fruitful, valuable and perhaps more “truthful”.

Sometimes the science behind technology is very poor and the underlying elements are very poorly understood and described with models that are clearly not really the “absolute truth.” A great example is electricity. Science is still attempting to unravel the mystery of electricity, meanwhile we have lit up the night skies with it to a point where the myriad lights aglow in the world can be seen from our satellites.

Maria, your concluding statement really resonates! My daughter is a graduate automotive engineer, mostly working in Research. She has told me that a lot of what they do is trial and error, and they often don’t know how well some vehicle they are engineering will prove to work, even as they take it to market. Yes, their trial and error is informed by science and education, but it is trail and error nonetheless. They proceed by making educated guesses about a lot of things.

That is the difference between “science” and “technology” right there. Technology is about “workability”.

Most of the incredulous research presented in PDC Tapes and in History of Man came from absolute reliance on e-meter. The e-meter doesn’t dream up a theory. All these incredible incidents were dreamed up by Hubbard. The preclear was put under leading and evaluative questioning based on presumed incidents. This is evident from recorded Dianetics sessions of 1950-51. Those preseumptions were then modified as necessary, based on e-meter reads. Finally, they were considered to be “confirmed” by e-meter reads.

To me, this method doesn’t confirm the actual existence of such incidents, even when the preclear may voice them and agree with them. The preclear could have been egged along these lines by Hubbard in the first place by his leading and evaluative questioning.

I do not deny that something works in Scientology. But I do doubt that it works because of Hubbard’s theories. Scientology may work simply because of LOOKING. The same LOOKING may not be present to that degree in psychoanalysis, but psychoanalysis also works to the degree LOOKING is present there. Same argument may be made for meditation and other mental practices out there.

Basically, I do not think that Scientology works because of Hubbard’s theories. There is no scientific proof for that. All that Scientology does is that it provides various ways of looking… a sort of shotgun approach, while it does not emphasize on looking, or properly prepares a person for it.

Well, I’m not sue what you mean by “Hubbard’s theories”, but it seems to me the “looking” is certainly there in what Hubbard defined as “scientology”. He categorized many things as “para-scientology” very early on. He included Dianetics in “para-scientology”, past lives, all that stuff, was “para-scientology” to him.
“Scientology” was basically a very precise thing to him, but from the beginning it seems “scientology” came to be accepted to mean all things to all men, until now when someone posts about “scientology” I have no idea whether they are referring to the Church, the tech, the admin, dianetics, some aspect of para-scientology, or someone’s squirrel idea about it.
I have used the “Tower of Babel” parable about it more than once, and I think it applies. The Tower of Babel story is about the kind of individuation that is a stumbling block to communication, and without communication problems won’t resolve.
I think it’s a shame, but I sometimes think people live in exactly the kind of world they deserve to live in.

I have a new sig for sites that allow such:
“Genius has it’s own limitations, however stupidity is boundless.”
Hopefully my cynicism is temporary!

I do not deny that something works in Scientology. But I do doubt that it works because of Hubbard’s theories. Scientology may work simply because of LOOKING. The same LOOKING may not be present to that degree in psychoanalysis, but psychoanalysis also works to the degree LOOKING is present there. Same argument may be made for meditation and other mental practices out there.

Basically, I do not think that Scientology works because of Hubbard’s theories. There is no scientific proof for that. All that Scientology does is that it provides various ways of looking… a sort of shotgun approach, while it does not emphasize on looking, or properly prepares a person for it.

I am the person who wrote the snarky article in the forum Valkov refers to.

And I absolutely think that NOTHING will come of this discussion!

1. Is there a committee formed for this project and a time to discuss realistic goals?

NO.

2. Is there a goal of finalizing a list of tests of LRH claims as well as a list of reliable life-changing metrics that can be realistically finalizing by a specific goal date?

NO.

3. Is there a 3D chat group like that in Second Life to discuss protocols in real time with cool avatars? Chatting allows for instant feedback to questions without a person being able to dominate a conversation and allows worldwide collaboration at http://www.secondlife.com

NO.

4. Is there a person focused on finding funding for such a project from grants and/or institutions or private investors?

NO.

5. Is there a guiding document to ensure that the subject is handled respectfully and not maliciously manhandled by a ruthless “bashing methodology” and mindset?

NO.

6. Is there EVEN a prospective list of interested parties who want to be involved?

Following is another of my rambling works. I don’t know the posters of these previous comments or their intentions or if they have an agenda besides to play a little parlor game that Geir has set up that he’s called “Scientology & scientific standards.” Some are referred to as skeptics. If I can understand Geir from a few of his articles that I have read and especially this one, I am understanding that Geir wants to be located carefully on the “team” or of the viewpoint of the “un-biased skeptic” — Also defined as scientist. This position is a particular player in a particular game, is it not? Am I getting you correctly Geir?

A question comes to mind whether Geir is trying to know something or whether he knows something that he is trying to get us to know? The answer to this would be pleasing to me Geir if you would elaborate? With both a trained scientific mind combined with thousands (?) of hours of solo auditing, you must have torn into the fractal fabric of your own mind to a degree unexperienced by almost all of mankind. Unbiased and with no agenda toward your answer, I am just trying to crystalize the game in my mind.

Lots of comments and arguments here which are non-sequitur toward the simple premise of whether the various effects and results of Scientology can stand up to the TR-3 of scientific duplicative questioning. Am I understanding your game Geir? If I am correct then I find this to be a simple premise – fun with no harm no foul – and possibly useful or at least enlightening. Some here argue the reasons for Scientology working and “guessing” at reasons which are quite well covered within the written and spoken body of technology of Scientology. An example of this is HCOB 23 May 1971 “The Magic of the Communication Cycle.” Once again, the skeptics may want to have “as-is” more carefully and fully explained. I have subjectively experienced “as-is” but I am at a loss to explain except to give examples of how I experience this. Can this “as-isness” be measured? Well if you can believe your eyes when looking at an e-meter then I say it can be measured. And yet I suppose that I am willing to listen to another explanation of the various meter manifestations such as blow down and floating needle. Maybe these needle manifestations are the result of something other than the “as-ising” of mental masses as described in the Tech.

I will not say that Scientology will or will not stand up to the “scientific method.” But being a scientist, you know that “testing” or going very much deeper into the physical universe than baking cakes arrives at the “quantum” and then after that the “normal” physical universe begins to unravel. I like to think that Scientology is this way — not as bias but as a very tentatively held opinion. I think that a person experiencing the subject of Scientology processing very quickly passes beyond the objective and enters into the subjective experience of reality.

But Geir, the intention of your article is aimed at the possibility of quantifying the results of Scientology processing. The skeptics of Scn want to re-direct our attention away from this discussion of the results of Scientology toward the character of the characters who invented and who have played and perverted this game — not very scientific of them.

I just think a really good place to start considering these questions is to:
1. Spend 10 minutes meditating on this video of the graphing of fractal calculations, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foxD6ZQlnlU
2. Re-read “The Factors” by LRH and consider the creation of space and time as it might be related to the video.
3. Consider the possibility of “universes” as lain out in The Factors as well as your experience and your imagination.
4. Then, let me know your ideas on this.

When you deal with somebody who disagrees with anything that LRH wrote, you have him re-reading the text and finding something he agrees with , and then again and again. The more time he reads, the more real subject becomes. Then you ask questions ” give me an example how wold you aply it in your life”or “give me an example of the time when you observed that happened to somebody else” . And if he can’t it’s time to do word clearing. That’s the trick, to get a student to the point he will
take anything LRH wrote and accept it . I used to get blown students back on cource just by word clearing. Sometimes it works,sometimes it does not. Sometimes you find a student that is more qualified to talk about the subject and in this case just word clearing is not an option.
—–
Once upon a time I thought that LRH was aways right, then I got a stable datum that he was always wrong. And about a year ago I finaly decided that nobody is always right or wrong. Nobody is perfect and if something works for you and you know it’s true but you can’t prove it to others,you don’t have to. There is always a fate factor involved, and if somebody became cancer-free after auditing, or somebody began walking after a assists,(I have seen that both ones happening) or somebody had some great wins, why not? Why is it so important to expain everything scientificaly? I’ve seen people who were doing great because they believed scientology works and then they were invalidated and their progress not only stoped, but took them a way behind the staring line.
So, if some people are happy aplying the tech, I’m happy for them. If they just want to pick what ‘s works for them- that’s great. Invaidation can destroy one’s case , it can crush a man’s stabe datum so bad, he never will be the same again.
People who travel from “LRH is aways right to LRH is always wrong” path, they need something to make their journey more smooth, like.. some tools on making own decissions …
People just need to start gathering apples from the aple tree, not blosoms, because
some of them never turn into apples.
As for me, I only use what works for me.
“Tech works” is just too general statement

To vvk1978, you made some interesting points. One was your rhetorical question, “Why is it so important to explain everything scientifically?” The scientists here might have a lot to say in response to that question (especially if have their own bias – about science 😉 . But they might also have some good answers as to “why it’s so important,” and I for one would be interested. Because, now that you’ve asked, I’m thinking it’s a fair question.

Here’s why: If in fact Scientology were to be practiced reasonably close to how it’s supposed to be, and it turned out to be very successful – then why indeed would it’s workability have to be proved any further? A commenter earlier on this blog might turn out to have been right when he called it nit picking.

Something else you said sort of made me stop in my tracks. You were talking about the tool of asking a person in disagreement to find something he could agree with, and then something else, again and again… (this much rings a bell with me) – and then you added: to the point where he will take anything LRH wrote and accept it. Yikes – that reminded me of a lecture transcript I read just recently, where LRH was talking about how easy it is to hypnotize even a whole group at a time – you just get them to agree to one thing and then another and then another, etc. Wow – food for thought…

But whatever might be made of all that, it would still be beside the point of whether Scientology itself works or not. Maybe science will confirm it, maybe the proof will be in the pudding. I’d be happy with either (but am willing to accept “neither,” if that’s how it turns out).

Yeah, scientific proof would produce a particular kind of word-of-mouth, maybe better – maybe no better – than word-of-mouth due to great workability. It remains to be seen whether the mighty Scientists will beat the mighty Independents. And let’s not forget, the Independents have been given quite a handicap with all the baggage they have inherited, and maybe they should be given a “handicap” in the sports sense too (if not, I’ve got my biased justifiers all set up 😉 ).

But, oh dear me, I can’t decide who to cheer for! I’m a faithful (no cracks, anybody) fan of the Independents… but I see that the Scientists might pave a better future playing field. (And that’s in good part due to this enlightening blog and the seeker-commenters here, thank you all very much.)

So Geir, I would just guess, off the top of my head, that “approximately” 97.5% of the world’s population would want Scientology to be widespread (in fact, in their “right mind,” 100%). Wouldn’t you say so? (You can take that as rhetorical if you want. I know your scientific and philosophic jury is still out. 😉 )

Physical sciences seek consistency with what we have come to agree upon as the Physical universe. What is then the spiritual universe? What are the laws of the spiritual universe. What sort of consistency shall we be seeking when studying the spiritual universe?

Answers to the questions above will help us understand the “scientific standards” that apply when dealing with a spiritual subject such as Vedas, Buddhism, various religions, and even Scientology.

The first law that I find applicable seem to be contained in the concept of LOOKING.

.

When we start questioning such agreements we are in a new territory. This may be the territory of spirituality.

What are the laws that provide the “scientific standards” at the level of spirituality?

I suppose we can apply scientific standards to Scientology by looking closely at the concepts floated in that subject for consistency. Let’s look at the concept of IMPLANTING. OT III talks about implanting. What is implanting really?

While reading PDC 24 this para caught my eye,

“Yeah, yeah, wonderful, isn’t it? All right, uh… so I sent this… this… this – three guys as a matter of fact – I sent several of them, but I… I hate to break down and tell you about that. Uh… none of them liked Dianetics so it’s all right uh… and uh… one of them was, well, that’s all right.”

Regardless of how Hubbard felt about it, Dianetics should not be treated as a holy cow. When in Scientology, we learned to act superior and disconnect from anybody who was critical of Scientology. Some of us even made fair game out of these critics. But, in truth, we should examine Dianetics non-judgmentally until we develop an educated opinion about the materials. A person who does not know about Dianetics, should not be looked down upon as inferior. A person who does not like Dianetics should not be treated with contempt.

An implant would be complete acceptance of another’s idea as one’s own, and acting on it. Wouldn’t you say we were implanted to be suspicious, or even hateful of people who didn’t like Dianetics?

“The transposition would be that act of taking a person who is here and under influence, like hypnosis or something of this sort, persuading him to be somewhere else and then monitoring him somewhere else by addressing the body which is kept in a state of trance or drugs here.”

The above was part of a theory that Hubbard came up with as follows:

“You will find the lostness of your preclear normally stems from these transpositions, and why he can’t remember his past track, past this life, is partially because he doesn’t have anything from that period and the other is that he’s lost his space, and if he’s having trouble with space you’ll find these transpositions.”

Listening to Hubbard one comes away with the idea that such transposition is a fact. That it has occurred on the past track, when it is only a theory. I would like to see an experiment that demonstrates transposition in present time.

We come to believe a lot of things declared in Scientology to be factual when they are mere theories. Just because a person has some wins in auditing, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the theory underlying auditing is absolutely correct. This is obvious from the fact that people have wins from psychoanalysis, meditation, etc. Ultimately, any win comes from looking, which is the common denominator of all these different practices.

Would believing in all of Hubbard’s theories as factual be considered an implant? Do we get implanted in Scientology? Similarly, do we get implanted in Christianity? God and soul are part of a theory actually, but we come to believe them as factual. Would that be an implant?

What is an implant really? An implant seems to be a complete acceptance of another’s idea as one’s own even when one doesn’t understand it, and acting on it. Pain and unconsciousness may be one practice of implanting, but, wouldn’t persuasion be a more fundamental mechanism of implanting?

A persuasion can sway a person only when it forwards his or her hope. Isn’t it then a person’s own hope that makes a person gullible to implantation? This would then be true in Christianity and also in Scientology. Giving wins would be one way of implanting people.

It may be interesting to audit the beliefs we derived from Scientology against the hopes we entertained in those moments.

According to Hubbard, he actually did that to several people as an experiment. I think you will get a better sense of what he is saying if you listen to the audio; all the inflections, tone of voice, etc are missing in a transcript,which loses some of the meaning. It’s difficult to tell from a transcript when he is joking, when serious, etc.

I was commenting on your previous comment that”it is only a theory”. Hubbard presented it as something he had actually done, therefore not just a “theory”

Unlike you, I don’t judge it either way – I don’t know whether he did it, or it is actually just a theory.

You are quick t dismiss it as ” a theory”. I am pointing out that he did not present it as a theory, but as an account of something he did.

I actually don’t care which it is, I am just trying to accurately report the content of the lecture, but you are so quick to judge or evaluate it, it label it a theory, I think this reveals a bias on your part.

I have experienced what you are saying here. When I was waking up to what had occurred in Scientology, the hardest thing that I had to face was that hope, and the possibility of losing it. I wanted certain things to be true, but deep down I knew that I had to look, no matter what turned up. Another thing along this line that I experienced was that the suppressive ethics had little effect on me and I could fight it until it got mixed up with ARC.

In listening to lectures, I find that Hubbard states many ideas as fact, some of which are theories, some which may have happened one time and some which are maybe only a passing thought with little significance.

Implanting – If we take the Scientology definition, I would say No, we weren’t. We all had hopes or dreams or reasons we got in – I don’t think those were implants. I can envision a thetan being overwhelmed by electronics, etc to a point where implanting is enforced and virtually impossible to resist though.

If we take a normal definition, despite the coercion/persuasion, the final decision to be implanted/persuaded/coerced or agreement to be implanted sat with us. Some can easily walk away from a reg cycle, some can’t but that decision lies within.

I think Ron mentions in some spot where auditing out Scientology will be necessary … interesting concept.

“A persuasion can sway a person only when it forwards his or her hope. Isn’t it then a person’s own hope that makes a person gullible to implantation? This would then be true in Christianity and also in Scientology. Giving wins would be one way of implanting people.”

THIS statement is EXACTLY the problem with the “If it works it’s true” concept.

Most of the incredulous research presented in PDC Tapes and in History of Man came from absolute reliance on e-meter. The e-meter doesn’t dream up a theory. All these incredible incidents were dreamed up by Hubbard. The preclear was put under leading and evaluative questioning based on presumed incidents. This is evident from recorded Dianetics sessions of 1950-51. Those preseumptions were then modified as necessary, based on e-meter reads. Finally, they were considered to be”confirmed” by e-meter reads.

To me, this method doesn’t confirm the actual existence of such incidents, even when the preclear may voice them and agree with them. The preclear could have been egged along these lines by Hubbard in the first place by his leading and evaluative questioning.

If you listen to some of the old tapes where Mary Sue was auditing & conducting research with LRH, he would be questioning himself out loud quite often & Mary Sue would be indicating what was reading or a needle characteristic.

I don’t remember nor do I think I ever read how he arrived at the assumption that a certain incident was common to all such as Incident 1 in the OT3 material.

I would love to read the research behind this to better my understanding.

As for the rest of the Bridge, I think it is generally asking an auditing question & the pc comes up with his own answer. Unless it is enforced like a gang bang sec check, it doesn’t appear that regular auditing is characteristic of an implant.

Many of the people over the decades who have been confined to “asylums” and psychiatric hospitals and diagnosed as “psychotic” and the various types of “schizophrenic” suffered that fate because they talked about experiencing electronic incidents, incidents involving “aliens” and other planets, stuff like that.

These were always classified by psychiatrists as “delusions” and the person was usually kept confined until s/he could convince the psychiatrist s/he now realized these incidents were “not real” and had never happened.

I am currently in India. At this moment I am in the city of Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat. Gujarat is currently the most progressive state in India.

Most of my recent messages were composed while flying from Detroit to Shanghai on a route that took me over the North Pole. I have been reading PDC 24 (lecture transcript) on a recommendation from Valkov. I also watched the movie “Inception” that I had heard a lot about.

This movie INCEPTION is like watching the mind of a psychiatric patient who is lost in his mind. He gets only occasional glimpses of his children in the present time. He desperately wants to get back to his children, which is the present time. He finally does so.

This is a very interesting movie. A psychiatric patient is probably lost in a reality that he has created for himself in order to sort out his confusions. He is desperately searching for some answer. In his desperation he is randomly digging into his mind. It is like getting into a dream, within a dream, within a dream, up to many levels. Dreams are like altered realities. A psychiatric patient is simply trapped in them to quite some degree in his desperation to find some answer.

Wow Vinaire, lots of good work you did there.
1. Good idea for experiment with transposition.
2. For me, an implant is one form of receiving an idea from someone else and making it your own. For me, implants are a more severe form of this when a person is coerced to take on another’s idea under severe duress such as pain and drug hypnosis. The difference between say implants and engrams are the method in which and also the agenda under which they are received. Leading another down a road which aligns with that person’s hopes and desires by “dangling a carrot” as implanting? Not so much I think. Your movie “Inception” does present the idea of a sophisticated form of implanting. The movie’s dreaming contraption is not elaborated on but for me needs drugs to put the people under (not shown) before the electronic hookup. Yes, this is for sure one form of implanting, a fairly severe way of presenting and then driving home with force a foreign idea. Persuasion as a form of implanting? Yes in a milder form but for me, it would really need earlier and similar implanting with force – thus relying on the present time “persuasion” as a trigger mechanism.
3. Regarding your idea about the psychiatric patient’s being trapped in a reality that he has created for himself in order to find some answer: Isn’t this LRH’s very most basic assertion about the condition of everyone? Doesn’t LRH assert that man is asleep and that the purpose of Scientology is to “wake him up?” The OCA test that we all took was a supposed measure of our degree of being lost, wasn’t it?
4. Referring to the fractal video:

I would like to propose something for your consideration about creation and the time track. If you watch the video, it is a movie of “travelling” through a graphic representation of a computer calculation of the Mandelbrot set. If you imagine yourself on the leading edge of this calculation – at the emanating and “plotting point” of this calculation – you find yourself at the leading point of creation and by definition at “Present Time.” The formula represents your plans for “The Future.” If you were to set such a calculation or call it “creation” in motion, set up an automaticity – a machine to run this out into the future and then let it run, you might then call this mechanism “Time.” All of the plotted points would begin existence as “dimension points” as per LRH definition in his article “The Factors.” When we become engrossed in our own creations, when we become fixated on some aspect of our creation, when we try to become our creations then there is trouble. In your movie example, the couple who together created their own little world, that world was aging and crumbling. It was only as solid and substantial and only had duration so long as the man and his wife continued to create it there. I think this is a very good example of the physical world where there is duration but not permanence. The oldest and longest durations that we conceive of yet are not eternal. Like lighting fireworks and sending a rocket into the air for a few seconds, it bursts and is dramatically beautiful against the night sky but only for a moment and then it decays and fades and the bloom transforms back to its more elemental forms which in turn have duration but not permanence. Our “physics” teaches us that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed but our physics is rapidly getting over this notion and unraveling more “secrets” of the universe like “dark matter” and the like and the whole of it all is just one great big playground. But man has a tendency to not be in control of any of this. He has a tendency to be a victim to it all and to tend toward irresponsibility. LRH said otherwise and gave us all – each of us many clues to unravel this game of “Dungeons and Dragons” that we are so fascinated with but also seem to be at the complete sad effect of. (I began writing with the idea to simply comment on and move the conversation off into a direction and now “my fingers ramble.” haha I am now the victim of my fingers!)
As you say the institutional psychotic is lost in his own mind – revels in the wonders or possibly nightmares of his own mind to the degree that he no longer can interact in the physical world with the rest of us. And likewise, I say that each of us, to the degree that we are unable to be high toned and pan determined and unable to interact positively and constructively in the physical world are to this degree “a psychiatric case.” All of these differences being a matter of “degree.”
5. Consider the preposterousness of reality. Consider the preposterous explanations for reality. Consider the religions of man explaining away at this reality and consider the newest religion of man = science. The hope of Science is that it is a self-correcting religion! Scientology claims to be self-correcting but is it? Consider how far science has come and how many “facts” have changed since its inception! Consider how far science has brought technology only lately and imagine for a moment the future of science if it progresses as it hopes into the future 10 years, 20 years, 100 years. If some of us become scientists and if we turn our physics -not so much- toward the fancy technology that we can create with it but turn our attention toward the betterment of the condition of man and thus the betterment of reality
then isn’t there a lot of hope for a better future for man? (what a lot of rambling! I apologize – I don’t mean to bore, I just have so much bubbling up inside me that seems hopeful toward our future)
6. Science has as its goal the ascertainment of what is real. The purpose of that activity is to help man not waste his time on dead-end paths created by aberrated formulas. Testing Scientology against the physical sciences is desirable if it moves us along that path and toward that goal. But it seems like a possible bog as well. (I’m out of steam for the moment!)

I think that an implant due to persuasion is much harder to detect and clear, compared to an implant placed under duress. It is much easier to unearth a moment of duress than a series of persuasive agreements. I think that Hubbard was incorrect in making engrams the basis of all aberrations. All his life he searched for engrams in cases. He constructed a whole Bridge in search of those elusive engrams, but he never achieved complete success. People looked for “WHAT IS NEXT?” even after OT VIII.

As long as the question of “WHAT IS NEXT?” remains, the complete success is not there from a scientific point of view.

I am using the word IMPLANT in a general sense. All engrams are implanted by circumstances that involve pain and unconsciousness. These are not intentional. But then there is an intentional variety of such engrams that implant pre-determined ideas and one may call them “implants.” But, pre-determined ideas may also be implanted in an insidious manner, which is much less obvious. Such implants would be much more dangerous as they would be harder to clear up. No wonder an OT VIII still wants to look. Look at Geir… Ha, ha! The conditioning has not been fully eliminated. The more insidious conditioning still remains. I myself am not free of all conditioning either.

In insidious implanting, a person’s desires and hopes seem to play a big part. These seem to be used as carrots as you pointed out. But, you don’t find this to be as serious as I do, and here we differ. One must have been persuaded to accept the ideas of pain and unconsciousness in the first place, before those ideas were used on a person.

This universe could be like living in a Mandelbrot set. There is no end to what one may find as one looks deeper and deeper. One may just keep on unraveling without successfully reaching a completion point. What one is missing then is the right direction of looking. The right direction of looking that will put an end to this “endless looking” within the Mandelbrot set, is to look for the Mandelbrot set itself. What is the “Mandelbrot set” for this physical universe?

Scriptures have called this form of looking as “stepping off the circle.” I think this is what you are saying too.

The limitation of science is that it is based on agreement. When we are looking at the agreement itself, then Science is of no help. We are then within a “Mandelbrot set” for which science does not provide us with a key. One must step off the “circle of agreement” to escape this level of illusion. Here one is completely alone. Science is of no help here.

Yes good stuff this.
1. For me, the most glaring flaw of Scientology is its absolute arrogance toward its own workability and its arrogant declaration of a Bridge to Total Freedom.
2. To declare Scientology to be the next consecutive step in man’s never ceasing curiosity to understand his own consciousness for me is more appropriate.
3. We should consider ARC. It should not be given a free ride. For years and even now as I type I consider this to be one of LRH’s finest “works.” But is it true? His 3-point triangles all describe and I’ve clay demo’d expanding and diminishing triple-helical coils to try and show relative understanding and OT ability. For me, when you “step off the circle of illusion” you step out of “the game.” Geir has expressed desiring to enjoy the hell out of playing any game including this one. Somewhere above 20.0 on the Tone Scale one finds themself “above” the playing of the game, hence alone. Neither Geir’s nor mine and I think neither you desire to stop “playing” with one another. Science is a game but according to our teachings (so far) this requires Agreement. For me, the trick to this is to continue on with this probing and as you say looking and carry science on our backs right out into the quantum and into the stars. There is something to this. There is something here and I consider that we can know about it. LRH says that data is not knowledge but certainty IS. I tend to hold onto this. It is my hope and it lends a sense of adventure to what we “could” call mundane.
4. And what is the mundane? This very adjective addresses the inability of the user to “enjoy.” At every “win” – during every “key-out” during every moment of clarity I have simply beamed with “enjoyment.” One day we will “arrive” and predictably say something philosophical like “wow! that was fun! . . . Let’s do it again!” We are taught and seem to think the MEST universe is very aberrated but is it? We don’t audit the MEST universe, we audit our own universes. We say the MEST game is no fun. But “fun” is our own state of mind and hence our own ability. The Xenu story leaves us living in a “desert.” So now we have an “impossible” game to overcome and to “win.” Win-Lose is of course our own invention, but all creation understands win-lose from executives, and ball players to kids and to puppies. Everyone wants to play and everyone wants to “win.” The only aberrated thing that I can see about games are when you remove “sportsmanship” from the game.

5. And there is aberration in the thought that there is scarcity in the universe… What could be further from the truth? I think living within the Mandelbrot Set becomes aberrated when we try to become the anchor points, try to make things hold still, become infatuated with some pretty aspect and forget to continue to “PLAY,” forget to continue to CREATE. Begin to believe that our intellect and consciousness is diminishing and and that we are eroding. Our creations erode and it is a trap to identify too closely with our works of art and to forget or become too lazy to make more.

Your view of “implanting” , seems to be so broad it includes just about everything involved with being born into and growing up in a society – learning a language, child-rearing as in being raised to hold the common beliefs and values, education in schools, conforming to one’s social group’s mores, etc etc. Is all that really “implanting” in Hubbard’s sense?

You mention: “No wonder an OT VIII still wants to look. Look at Geir… Ha, ha! The conditioning has not been fully eliminated. The more insidious conditioning still remains. I myself am not free of all conditioning either”

I don’t know about Geir, but if I was at OT VIII right now and it had not got me fully where I was heading for, of course I would still want to look.

This is NOT conditioning to me at all – I wanted to Seek before I was even in Scientology, nor was it induced by my participation in Scientology.

You laugh at Geir wanting to look and mock him in that ‘the conditioning has not been fully eliminated. The more insidious conditioning still remains.’

To me this is a pretty low blow – who are you to mock others for wanting improvement, or seeking betterment or expansion? And to refer to this as insidious? Do you really believe we have all been insidiously conditioned to seek greater awareness?

Who knows what is after OT VIII? What other answers are there out there?

Personally, I don’t think Geir is one to just sit on his duff and consider “That’s it’ I’m done. This is the extent of man’s awareness. There is no more.”

I think the frequent use of “conditioning” is often misplaced. Because any influence can be seen as conditioning – and as we are continually influenced by everything we observe, “conditioning” becomes a tautology.

Chris wrote, “2. For me, an implant is one form of receiving an idea from someone else and making it your own.”

That seems entirely too broad. That pretty much covers all communication.

For me, “implanting” conveys the concept that by force or possibly trickery, ideas are placed in my mind/beingness that I have not really been able to “make my own”. The concept of nullification of self-determinism is always present in the concept of “implants”. “Persuasion” could be a means of implanting. “Education”in a school or even by parents/caretakers from an early age, when datums are accepted uncritically by the child, could be considered to be a form of implanting.

However, generally my sense of what Hubbard means when he uses the term, is more alongthe lines of a strong nullification of the person’s ability to choose whether he accepts the ideas being “implanted”. As in PDH, electronics, etc.

Wow, 500 words is WAAAAAY too many for me to confront at once!
I was commenting on the idea of “making one’s own”. I see implants and engrams as “not being one’s own” until they are run and re-filed as “memory”. This is kinda per the idea from DMSMH of “the exterior world becomes interior”.

Chris, what you called “rambling” felt to me like you were way up at the tone level of Games (22.0) and the fun and excitement was infectious just reading it, in spite of the fact that I didn’t totally follow all of it!

But in relation to what you were saying about implants aligning with hopes and desires, “dangling a carrot,” and what you, Vinaire, said about the “insidious persuasion” in implants – there are a couple of LRH datums I thought of. The first is from Scientology 8-80:

“In the case of a man…it requires a *very* heavy facsimile as a basic and facsimiles such as operations, accidents, beatings HAVE TO HAVE [my caps], as a basic, facsimiles so strong their counterpart cannot as yet be duplicated on Earth. And the basic facsimile must answer a condition – a very important one: [the following in italics:] Its wavelengths must have, at least in part, a near approximation of theta itself [end italics]… and that wavelength is found to be aesthetics, the wavelength of the arts.”

The other datum is in the NED course materials, which I don’t have to hand, and may not be quoting exactly, but it is basically this: postulate off equals erasure – i.e. you have to get off the person’s own postulate in the incident for the incident to lose its hold.

Yes, Miraldi…
Yes I agree. LRH always describes and I always think of implanting as occurring with much force, pain and unconsciousness. We’ve been tossing that word around and coupling it with much milder forms but implanting is always an enforced viewpoint and not these little opinions …. and you are right – LRH says a person’s mind is very “tough” and doesn’t aberrate easily. A person’s own decision is so tough that nuclear bombs won’t crack it. For me, these are concealed and at the root of all case manifestation. Really for me, we have many tools in Scientology with which to address a person’s ideas about things. Especially his computations. False Data Stripping and Service Facsimile handling to mention two. Sometimes I feel that because of the “expanding and diminishing spiral of existence” that it might not hurt to revisit these “grades” processes to see whether there isn’t something there to pick up again and again. If not, well it FN’s and that’s that. False Data Stripping gets into an area where the student/pc must train himself to be ever more aware of his “non-optimum” circumstances and continue to refine and improve his definition of a “non-optimum” circumstance as he comes to be in a better condition. And noticing this and commenting on this I think well, don’t we have written in this thread many computations and expressions of service facsimiles? Did we do our grades? yes? Thoroughly? Yes? But even so, isn’t there continuing room for improvement? Aren’t there still lessons to be learned there within those processes? and within those tools? And on and on we go and one day the entire universe just disappears for us and we go “oops! . . . I overshot! If I want to play, I better take this back down a notch!” –How do you say?

… And really, we want our “cases” to be so very exotic and complicated. We want them to be very durable and to contain mysterious and exotic phenomena and so why? So the reason for our present time bad behaviors and fixed conditions to have very important bad reasons? You know we can see at ourselves as others see us if we try. Any number of “lightweight” reasons can exist for us to have any number of “heavy” computations. They don’t have to be trillion year whole track aberration for us to be mightily affected by them. I think this is what is meant by being a victim. We can just stop it and we can want to be better. We can want to treat others better and we can be better if we really want to. That desire is the spark that will ignite any number and amounts of inquiries into our conscious existence. We can do it you know? We cause things – you know?

I say you make some good points! I remember noticing and being intrigued that the Grades certs state “Provisional” on them. Totally backs up your ideas, seems to me. By the way, there was some OT (don’t remember which level), auditor trained too, who made a comment a while back on another blog, about Grade IV giving the biggest wins – that was pretty intriguing as well.

And, from my experience as a Word Clearer, I have a huge appreciation of the “power” of false data. Geir’s blog is essentially stripping people of it, I do believe (and maybe doing 3D engram running too). Probably a little tougher to handle ser facs in this “coffee shop,” from what I recall about how tenacious LRH says they are. But even with those – we (on all flows) are trying! 🙂

WIN-LOSE go together. You cannot win without losing.
There is entirely another game going on out of view.
You are given a booby trapped goal that is impossible to accomplish.
This whole thing is quite mechanical.
Any goal in this universe is quite phony.
The big secret is that there is no secret.
Mystery = hide nothing, but simply make it appear so.
It will all be in the person’s mind.
MEST universe is just empty.

PDC 24 is the first of a 2-hour lecture. PDC 25 goes into how the MEST universe is actually constructed to be a “reverse-vector universe”, in which what you want goes away from you, what you don’t want appears right in your lap, what you agree with inevitably disagrees with you, in Hubbard’s view of it.

He describes it all in terms of flows. It seems pretty accurate.

But of course we already know you will disagree with him somehow. (Which may be a good thing.)

This phenomen can be observed in some careers of celebrities. (if it becomes public in the news). They won everything, standing on the top, the “olymp”
and at some point in time they fuck up, loose everything, wife estates, aSSETS,
Its an extreme example but it also happens to the usual citicen like me *lool

Happens a lot to lottery winners, many of whom end up broke again just a year or two later. I think this has to do with the person’s “acceptance level”, as Hubbard called it.

A person has considerations about what he can and can’t have. The if he receives more than he considers he can have, he wastes what he can’t have. Some people “can have” only poverty or a less than rich life, financially.

Can you instantaneously create an effect on a third person who is not there, through a second person who is there? This seems to be a theory by Hubbard as a possibility from his “research” into cases. Even if this is possible, I don’t think that Hubbard really understood this phenomenon, otherwise he could have used it at will to remove threats from his environment better.

Hubbard seems to blame MEST universe a lot. Why? MEST universe is simply a projection created out of one’s postulates. Blaming MEST universe would be akin to blaming the complexity of one’s own postulates. Blaming prevents a person from really looking.

Could Scientology be Hubbard’s attempt to sort out his own space by experimenting with other people’s minds.

You know, that “MEST universe is simply a projection created out of one’s postulates” statement is old as the hills. It’s the old “Why worry, reality is not real” side of the old real/not-real argument. It’s a rationalization or justification of having failed to solve the dichotomy.

The fact is, when you stub your (postulated) toe on the (postulated) table leg, it still hurts like hell if you stub it hard. Does it feel better when you tell yourself “It’s only a projection…etc”?

When the (postulated) fuel-air bomb explodes over (a postulated) Baghdad and hundreds of people die an agonizing death, does it help to say it’s (only) a projection of postulates?

I guess that’s my quarrel with some of the philosophies coming out of India. Some of them create an apathetic acceptance of bad conditions. “Why do anything about illness, disease, death, poverty, the caste system, etc. They are all just part of a grand illusion.”

There are valuable philosophical traditions in India,but much of the progress and revitalization of India is actually Western in origin. Witness India’s adoption of a democratic form of government, which in turn erodes the entrenched caste, or the massive number of Indians coming to the West to study medicine, who then go back to help imorove the lot of their countrymen…. or the IT entrepreneurs who help fund clinics in India…..

Yes. I honestly think Geir is serious. I’ve been nay-saying to get people off the dime to do real Science. The movie I posted about Ricard above is an example of what is possible.

Now Mattieu Ricard believes in enlightenment. Even if we prove that no being is ever completely free from suffering, it does not negate the benefits of his practice. Science is measuring the USEFULNESS of Buddhist techniques not the TRUTHFULNESS of its claims.

We really don’t need to focus on the blatantly obvious stuff. Nobody is going to go exterior and read a card facing away from him at 100%. So we can skip those kinds of experiments because they will CERTAINLY fail. No Scientologist is going to with the James Randi Million Dollar Challenge.

What would I like to see tested?

In Fact I just happen to have a list …

1. Brain scans of auditing sessions and what wins look like from the inside out.
2. Brain scans comparing unmeter auditing and metered auditing to see the effect on endorphins the electric charge produces.
3. Gamma wave measurement studies of TR0.
4. IQ measurement that does NOT use Scientology’s metrics. I believe the IQ tests that people use to say there was an increase are not reliable. I would like to see real IQ tests administered by trained administers of such tests before and after processing/training.
5. Metrics of Meaning. Put people through different training programs and have them rate how much it increased meaning in their lives over time. Scientology vs. Knowledism.
6. Comparison of Gamma Waves of Tibetan Monks and OT 8s for who can create the best states of well being.
7. Micro Emotion Recognition studies of people before and after communication courses to measure weather or not the course helps people really catch the more subtle lines of communication.
8. Effect of an emeter when a person is using stimulants in their life (Nicotine, Caffeine) to see if there is an increase in experience among smokers and coffee drinkers.
9. Stress monitoring equipment to show how if someone uses TR0 on the job if they can reduce the stress on their bodies in the long term from aggressive communications.
10. Brain scans of people learning how to use the tone scale. This can measure how much “boredom” a person can willingly produce when communicating with an angry person. Over time, the ability for a person to increasingly create their own tones can be measured.
11. Some people have wins that last for weeks. These people’s brains can be monitored to see what effects are lingering.
12. Some claim auditing is an addictive process citing that the meter works like a TENS unit to release endorphins and thus hooks people on their own endorphins. This question can be tested.

Word Clearing. Using brain imaging techniques to understand how the brain processes words before word clearing and after word clearing and how the change works over time. I suspect that more parts of the brain would light up after word clearing.

Economic Study. Scientology claims to increase ones personal ability. Studies of people’s financial success compared to other demographics can be measured to determine if people who study Scientology make more money on average.

Just to let you know, the IQ tests I did were not using Scientology metrics at all. These were 3rd party tests … one type I did in North America was totally different from one I did in Europe – Different formats, different questions. One showed a large IQ raise, one a smaller one.

This is why I mentioned earlier that I couldn’t care less about IQ tests – the results are too random. Frankly I can’t imagine a test that would really show a true picture of IQ change in relation to auditing.

On the other hand, the Oxford Capacity Analysis was interesting. I probably did 30 of those over the years, and yes, my viewpoint of life, etc., did change and was reflected to a greater or lesser degree in the chart. But the real gauge for me was ME – how I viewed things, how I changed after handling various bits of case, & how I operated in life.

Although science and religion are often in conflict, the Dalai Lama takes a different approach. Every year or so the head of Tibetan Buddhism invites a group of scientists to his home in Dharamsala, in Northern India, to discuss their work and how Buddhism might contribute to it.

In 2004 the subject was neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to change its structure and function in response to experience. The following are vignettes adapted from ‘Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain,’ which describes this emerging area of science:

The Dalai Lama, who had watched a brain operation during a visit to an American medical school over a decade earlier, asked the surgeons a startling question: Can the mind shape brain matter?”

Science doesn’t actually lay claim to truth. It lays claim to what can be quantified, observed, reviewed, always with an eye to identifying better truths or explanations.

But they are always explanations.

The assumption that someone who does the PRE ot materials of Scientology is now a “finished” product, a particular construct or set of identified characteristics ignores that this is a state unique to that particular individual as a result of his/her own PERSONAL and very subjective explorations. EXPLORATIONS. Not normalization, not building a particular type of being, not fixing this or that. This is an individual who explores, and to my mind it would be exceedingly weird to have that individual STOP exploring.

Right now, that’s my biggest grievance with the C of S. I have spent my entire life exploring before and after Scientology. I find it extremely constraining and not to my liking that now that I have explored all the way through the OT sections 1- 7, I am now supposed to stop exploring. NOPE. NEVER.

Who’s to say there is some finite point where one is “finished” with this process of exploring? Who’s to say that these explorers are supposed to stop exploring? Maybe the whole point of all of this is to aid an individual’s exploration and make greater exploration possible? At this point it looks to me like exploration may be infinite in scope — new vistas all the time. I think its wonderful.

I always liked that line LRH used – something like ‘rubbing elbows with all manner of men”.

I always took this in a metaphoric sense in that we seek, we explore, we experience all that there is and then look for more. As you put it, ‘exploring the unexplored’.

Whether or not this desire to know is an innate quality of a being, or simply the underlying decision we made to unravel this mystery/game, I can’t say for everyone. It seems to me it would be when a person comes up to ‘need of change’.

Whether it be seeking or exploring or finding one’s own answers to the unexplained, I admire individuals such as these. Right or wrong doesn’t enter into it; that they are seeking answers and greater expansion for themselves & their fellows to me is admirable.

The main topic of this blog entry was :
“Now, why should Scientology get a free pass as regards to this scientific standard? Why should we believe L. Ron Hubbard when he says that his Auditing Technology works? We shouldn’t. It must be tested.”

I don’t get it! I would have thought that there would hardly be any discussion about this point – everyone would agree. But not so! There are lots of objections and differing viewpoints. The counter-arguments run along these lines:

1. The scientific method is not applicable or can not be used to prove the type of things we are talking about. Another argument along the same lines is that the scientific method itself is undefined or unclear, and at any rate not that reliable.

2. It is trivial and unimportant (“nit picking”) to require scientific evidence. All that matters is that it works.

3. Proving the theories or the workability is merely an intellectual exercise which is entirely unnecessary. All you need to do is to try it out for yourself, and then you will know. The very thought of needing proof is some sort of indication that the person requiring proof has somehow failed in achieving personal certainty on the subject.

I find it puzzling that a number of people posting have arguments against the original proposition. Obviously most of them care about truth a great deal or they would not even be visiting this blog. Yet in this particular matter it does not seem to matter.

I would like to offer my viewpoints on the above arguments one by one.

1. The scientific method covers many different things: how to best go about conducting experiments, how to research and find information, and much more. What is of interest for our topic at hand is specifically the scientific method as it applies to ascertaining the veracity of a theory or model. Much can be said about how it is done, and it is correct as someone pointed out that there are no absolutes. However, common to ALL variations of the method is one thing: YOU DO YOUR DAMNEDEST TO TRY AND MAKE SURE (AND DOUBLE SURE) THAT THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOUR CLAIM. Has this been done with Scientology? Definitely NOT. So even if we don’t specifically believe in the scientific method with all its requirements, shouldn’t we still do everything in our power to ascertain the truth of the claims of Scientology? This has not been done. Which brings me to point 2.

2. Is it important? Another way of asking the same question is: “Is truth important”? As long as it works, isn’t that enough? I say there are many good reasons for verifying the theories, even if (for some unfathomable reason) we don’t care about the truth about life, the spirit, reincarnation, the nature of the universe etc. An example from medicine might serve to illustrate my point. The Cherokee Indians are known to have used an extract from the bark of the willow tree to cure fever and pain. The Indians believed that the trees had a spirit, and that this spirit had the intention to help. The theory was “proved” by the fact that the remedy worked. Later scientific research showed that the real reason for the medicinal properties of the willow tree was the active ingredient of salicylic acid, which was then purified and used as a pain killer. Unfortunately it had a side effect of causing serious stomach trouble. But a slight chemical change (adding an acetyl group) removed most of the side effects, and the new substance became widely used under the trade name of aspirin.

Is it not possible that if we research Scientology we will find the REAL reason it works, which is not necessarily because (to give an extreme example) aliens were sent to earth 75 million years ago? And if so, might we make it even more workable?

Another good reason to research it, of course, is that scientific validation is the carte blanche to acceptance in our current society. It doesn’t matter how socially unacceptable or how opposed something is, if it’s backed by proper scientific research and validation it will overcome all opposition. A case in point is the research done on the harmful effects of tobacco. A mere handful of scientists managed to overcome the collected resistance of the hugely powerful tobacco industry. I don’t necessarily buy into the idea that Scientology is being held back by psychiatry. But for the sake of argument, if we accept this as true, then a full scientific study validating Scientology would literally crush the opposition overnight. At least if it was indeed demonstrated to be as workable as it is claimed to be.

3. Is wanting to prove it merely a symptom of lack of personal certainty? The person forwarding this argument is slightly different than the two above. Put another way, what he is basically saying is that personal certainty/wins is adequate proof for both the workability and for the truth of the underlying theories. I think this argument springs from a failure to understand the scientific method. The single purpose of the method is (as I wrote above) to use the most reliable means possible to make sure that the claimed theories or models are in fact true. Personal conviction has been shown on innumerable occasions to be one of the poorest methods of ascertaining truth (back in the days of bloodletting the doctors were absolutely sure that is was both workable and well founded in theories about how the body works – so sure that experiments to prove the point were considered unnecessary or even unethical). At best one could say that personal certainty of wins proves one thing, and one thing only: the person experiencing these wins experienced wins.

As for me, I do care about truth. I think it matters. I also think that it matters that claims made are backed by proper evidence. This is all the more so when the claims concern some of the most important things in all of life. Would we not require proof and scientific evidence of the very highest level of stringency and quality in matters such as medicines? Or airplane safety? Or food additives? And wouldn’t even these so very important things pale by comparison next to such questions as:

-Do we live again?
-Are we a soul or a body?
-Is there a workable way of helping man improve his live and handle the trouble he has with his mind?
-Is man basically good? And if so, is there a way of making him act that way?

Could we even imagine a more worthwhile field for science to probe into with the very best tools of inquiry and verification?

Prior to Scientology, there have been many different treatments of the subject of mind and spirit. Scientology (includes Dianetics) appealed to me because it seemed to find the common denominators among all those other treatments and express them in a relatively straightforward manner.

But Scientology is not the final answer. It would be a mistake to consider Scientology to be so. That consideration belongs to the Dark Ages. We can now find another level of common denominators in the voluminous work outpoured by Hubbard. I am glad that this work by Hubbard exists.

The first common denominator of the next level variety, I find to be LOOKING. Scientology processes help one LOOK better compared to the processes of Psychoanalysis. But both subjects focus on LOOKING. A lot of that looking is guided by different theories. It may be beneficial to take a closer look at those theories and find the next level common denominators there.

I would designate the technology outlined in Data Series as advanced Scientific method. An unbiased spotting of outpoints against a rational ideal scene, which itself is based on a well-defined purpose, is vital. Next step would be to spot those areas where such outpoints abound. Next step would be to look more closely at the area where the density of outpoints is the greatest. And then we repeat the same sequence as above in this narrowed down area. This repetitive sequence leads rapidly to locating “the needle in the hay-stack,” or locating those items that need to be as-ised, where that purpose is concerned.

It is ok to know that something works, but science does not stop there. The effort is always to find out, “Can it work better?” That is how scientific progress is made. It is a waste of time to prove that something works when it has already been experienced to work.

A theory should be admitted to be theory. It should not be considered factual based on mere vague association with some workable results. One should closely investigate what is producing those workable results and how may those results be improved further. I find LOOKING to be the basic principle underlying all gains. I do not find e-meter to be indispensable. One can produce the same or better results without the e-meter.

I haven’t read the whole post of Ivro as it is too long, but I hope the points I have brought up here are relevant to his concerns. I propose Data Series approach as a better scientific method to examine the subjects of mind and spirit.

Vinaire, this is a very well articulated post! Everything you said about Scientology I would heartily agree with, but I have to hand it to you for really getting to the heart of the matter and expressing it so even-handedly and clearly.

But more than that, you laid out very plainly the questions about workability vs. scientific investigation – and that sorted it out for me. Thank you very much! 🙂

From PDC 24:
In auditing, a person can get lost in his thoughts, and he has to open his eyes now and then to reestablish his anchor points. Hubbard is associating “being lost in thoughts” with “being transported here and there by others.” Does that kind of theory lead to any worthwhile solutions?

The actual situation is that of a lack of orientation, and the solution is to establish orientation. How does one establish orientation? It would start with the physical environment, and then with the mental environment.

No esoteric theories are needed. You simply perceive the physical environment to get oriented to it. Again, you simply perceive the mental environment in the order that mind un-stacks itself to get oriented to it.

Trouble comes when one starts to ransack the mind randomly. I think that is where Hubbard went wrong. He was prone to ransacking the mind randomly. That is where his weird theories came from.

The solution with a psychotic is simply to get him oriented to the physical environment first. You don’t touch his mental environment at all until he is oriented to his physical environment. I do not understand all the complexity that Hubbard gets into.

In between his weird ramblings, Hubbard does come up with sensible data, such as, “knowingness is composed of having anchor points and being able to handle and combine energy.” Hubbard’s weird ramblings consist of blaming “unknown entities” for one’s condition.

You seem to have a real propensity for invalidating many things Hubbard did and you tend to look at him with a constant disdain.

“In between his weird ramblings, Hubbard …”, “Hubbard’s weird ramblings consist of blaming …”, “I do not understand all the complexity that Hubbard gets into.”, “I think that is where Hubbard went wrong”.

And that’s just your last post.

Why not simply LOOK, and acknowledge that at the very minimum, he was on a path of discovery. Not YOUR path, but a path.

Your view /your method should be looked in the same way that ‘Hubbard’s complex ramblings’ as you put it, are. You are both explorers.

I don’t know about anyone else, but it is a relief to post comments on a blog where someone really cares about the quality of posts and really cares about flagging bias and fallacy. Thank you for that!

@Quicksilver
In no way was I putting Geir down. That thought was not even in my mind when I wrote that. It is not in my mind even now after you have brought it to my attention.

To me, any postulate, any consideration, any thought acts as conditioning as long as one is identifying with it. Hubbard was conditioned by the idea of individuality (self), as most people are. His OT levels make one more and more of an individual.

Buddha took the leap beyond the idea of individuality (self). It is wonderful to truly understand Buddha. I understand Buddha intellectually, but I still have to make that leap. Hubbard disagreed on this point with Buddha (see section IDENTITY VERSUS INDIVIDUALITY in SCN 8-8008). If he had understood it he would have come up with OT Levels beyond OT VIII.

So, I would doubt if any OT has overcome the identification that makes one believe in one’s individuality. Geir is an OT. He is a very strong individual. He is also my very good friend. He was the most wonderful host and guide when I visited Norway in May 2010. We understand each other quite well and appreciate each other too.

I am not trying to put any individuality down. It is just a technical point for me. Any ego is rooted in individuality. Going beyond ego, to me, is also going beyond the identification as in individual.

It may be difficult to understand where I am coming from. I can only hope that you my make some effort to do so.

I don’t think ‘ego’ (self-importance) is ROOTED in individuality. Yes, it is something that may be part of a certain individual beingness, but knowing oneself does not necessarily manifest as an ‘ego’.

There was a reference (I believe in the Pabs – not sure) where LRH talked about an OT being humble. There is also the reference about being interestED vs. being interestING. Two very different viewpoints – one lower on the scale – interestING, and one higher – interestED.

I do not remember one reference where LRH mention being an individual in the sense that you portray – quite the opposite.

One can be Cause and an individual without ego being an issue – egos get handled generally lower on the bridge.

As for your statement that ‘Buddha took the leap beyond individuality’ – who knows if he did … I wasn’t there nor do I know what he experienced. They are words in scriptures just like any other philosopher. Even your viewpoint and mine of Buddha are created beingnesses.

1. I understand very well the point you made about the glaring flaw in Scientology of its absolute arrogance toward its own workability and its arrogant declaration of a Bridge to Total Freedom.

2. Yes, declaring Scientology to be the next step would have been more appropriate.

3. Yes, when you “step off the circle of illusion” you step out of “the game.” But then you may come back and do your best to chart that route for others. That is what Buddha did, and Buddhism brought civilization to three-quarters of the world at its peak. I am still searching for the complete route out, and, as far as I can see, we all are doing that in our own ways, including Geir. Science is mankind’s search for the complete route out while mapping it as it goes forward. Geir seems to like that, and me too. It is a fun game. Science of spirituality is going to be very different from the science we have known so far.

4. Yes, we go into ecstasy every time we as-is (un-create) something. These are moments of reducing the complexity into simplicity. But, earlier, we experienced a similar ecstasy when we were as-ising (creating) this complex universe step by step. Right now we all seem to be on a cosmic withdrawal, after having made a cosmic reach (see Factor #6). Then there will be another cosmic reach followed by another cosmic withdraw, and so on. This is what Hinduism holds. Games are dimes a dozen. There is no dearth of them. There is no need to be stuck in any game.

Valkov said: Your view of “implanting” , seems to be so broad it includes just about everything involved with being born into and growing up in a society – learning a language, child-rearing as in being raised to hold the common beliefs…

Very interesting discussions. Every time i read something from you guys i am inspired.

Here you shared some thoughts about implants.

I think that implantig is forcing agreement on others.
Or, making others to agree by using false data.
When you make others to agree using true data then it is called education.

I like Vinaire’s posts about LOOKING. Good job Vin. It makes sense.
Although some of my stable data are a bit shaken by it and i need to realign my stable
data.

But i think that LRH was dead in 1972 (lots of outpoints show’s this),
so he had no chance to correct his mistakes.
Black hat players removed him, and cloned him, i believe that it is ordinary thing
for them to manipulate genetic entities and transfer memories from brain to brain, etc.
Maybe fake LRH was almost the same body, but it was different thetan.
With fake LRH at the top, Scientology after 1972-73 went down.

Scientology’s weakest point was that LRH was big authority, so they only needed to
remove him, and put instead another man that can be manipulated, and that man
was fake LRH after 1972, then it was easy to exploit other weak points.

It is the real WHY, at least for from viewpoint.

Ok, enough of this. 🙂 What i really wanted to say here is about implanting and
agreement, and sharing some references here.

In the book Super Scio, there are some useful descriptions that can help understand
why people enforce agreement at each other, please read the chapters of “Cosmic History” page 46 , and “Jewel of Knowledge” page 558, and “A More Accurate Look At Incident 2” page 305

Super Scio is btw large book full of various data about implants, and some cosmology.
Since i am fascinated about implants and cosmologies that is very exciting and interesting to me. It is written by Pilot (Ken Ogger), and some of that data is beyond OT levels.

So i recommed it also for Geir since Geir is writing a book about OT levels(?)

I really believe these chapters can give you some new realizations and better
understanding. So take a look at it, if you are iterested. These chapters have a lot
to do with what you discussed here.

It does not matter whether it is false data or true data. If you get a person to agree with it with force or persuasion, it is still implanting because the other person is made to accept it without proper examination and thorough understanding. Understanding is a lot more than mere agreement.

I have been studying “BUDDHA by Karen Armstrong” for the second time lately, and I am getting new insights into Buddha’s approach. The primary similarity between Buudha and Hubbard is that both rejected some external cause being responsible for one’s enlightenment. Both believed that enlightenment could be obtained entirely through one’s own effort. Beyond that the similarity ends.

Buddha’s approach was “mindfulness” in which he scrutinized his behavior at every moment of the day. He noted the ebb and flow of his feelings and sensations, together with fluctuations of his consciousness. If sensual desire arose, instead of simply crushing it, he took note of what had given rise to it and how soon it faded away. He observed the way his senses and thoughts interacted with the external world, and made himself conscious of his every bodily action. He would become aware of the way he walked, bent down or stretched his limbs, and of his behavior while “eating, drinking, chewing, and tasting, in defecating, walking, standing, sitting, sleeping, waking, speaking and keeping silent.” He noticed the way ideas coursed through his mind and the constant stream of desires and irritations that could plague him in a brief half-hour. He became “mindful” of the way he responded to a sudden noise or a change in the temperature, and saw how quickly even a tiny thing disturbed his peace of mind. This “mindfulness” was not cultivated in a spirit of neurotic introspection. Gotama had not put his humanity under the microscope this way in order to castigate himself for his “sins.” Sin had no place in his system, since any guilt would simply be “unhelpful”: it would imbed an aspirant in the ego that he was trying to transcend.

The italics above are quoted from Karen Armstrong’s BUDDHA. There is more, which, those who are interested, should look into. It is an excellent summary of Buddha.

Hubbard’s approach was to become aware of moments of pain and unconsciousness in one’s mind. He used an e-meter to search for such moments. If such moments could not be approached, he then searched for their effects first and then ride on the awareness of those effects to approach what lay at the bottom of them.

I call Buddha’s approach to be un-stacking of the mind. I call Hubbard’s approach to be digging into the mind. These may not be accurate descriptions, but there they are.

I do take back my earlier accusation of Hubbard squirreling Buddha. That accusation doesn’t tell you much and may come across as a bias. I do not like the term “squirreling” as it discourages one from looking.

Vinnie wrote: “Buddha’s approach was “mindfulness” in which he scrutinized his behavior at every moment of the day. He noted the ebb and flow of his feelings and sensations, together with fluctuations of his consciousness. If sensual desire arose, instead of simply crushing it, he took note of what had given rise to it and how soon it faded away. He observed the way his senses and thoughts interacted with the external world, and made himself conscious of his every bodily action,……. etc”.

And how is this different from having your TR0 in, being in present time, and continuously obnosing?

What exactly do you think is ” TR0 the way followed by Buddha”? The modern Buddhist prescription is usually to focus on the breath leaving the nostrils. That seems to me to be an additive. It is not simply “being there” aware of whatever there is to be aware of without clinging to any of the contents of consciousness.

I might perhaps raise my hand if you clarify the exact procedure you had in mind when you posted that. Or perhaps not.

How do you or anyone alive now know how Buddha did it, after 2,500 years have passed since he lived?

I cannot answer this except to say you seem to be commingling the philosophy of Scientology with a particular institutionalization supposedly based on the philosophy. The only way I can address this is to say it seems like an A=A.

The only question I can think of to ask is “Whose approach to scientology does that?”

Certainly not mine, nor that of most of the other people posting here, as far as I can tell….

To me, the solution to any dichotomy is to completely understand both aspects of that dichotomy and not getting stuck in either of them. Hubbard’s THETA-MEST Theory sticks you as a THETAN and makes an opterm out of the MEST universe.

So your toe hurts when you stub it. Well, that is according to the laws of THETA and MEST alike. No use denying it. But one should understand what is going on here. THETA and MEST are not two independent systems. To me they are two aspects of the same system.

If you think that Buddha’s philosophy (which is an excellent summation of Vedic philosophy) creates an apathetic acceptance of bad conditions then you need to study it again.

The conditions that you see in India do not define Eastern philosophy, the same way that the conditions that you see in the Church of Scientology do not define Scientology itself.

I do think that Scientology’s workability can be improved. Scientology introduces an interesting approach, but I don’t think one should regard it as a completed work and do nothing more to improve upon it. In its current state, I doubt if Scientology can bring about a Cleared planet.

You may call Repair Lists to be a necessary part of the workability of the tech. To me these lists point to some weakness in the tech. They are simply holding actions. A well rounded tech would be very easy to apply. It would be error tolerant as it would be self-correcting.

I base my impression on my observation. Based on that observation I have written the essay’s on my blog, which should provide you with the specifics.

I also believe that Idenics of John Galusha also improves upon Scientology. It is much simpler to apply. It is error tolerant and self-correcting. It has a greater potential to bring about a Cleared planet.

Vinaire, if you haven’t already, please see my above reply to you, from earlier today. I think I understand where you’re coming from now. (Yay!) And I really have no basic disagreement with what you’re saying in this post well as that earlier one – which gave me your “world view,” so to speak, your rationale.

And I will probably check out some of your reading suggestions. 🙂 Thanks!

I would like to see a grassroots movement in the Independent field. I find the corporate model, culture and expectations of the West as a barrier to such a movement. Personal comforts seem to take priority over social responsibilities for Scientologists. We need a new breed of “monks.”

An Indian Scientologist friend of mine had disconnected from me for over 5 years since she found out that I was declared by the Church to be suppressive. She felt very guilty about it because she could not conceive of me as an evil person. I found out about that when she finally got in touch with me about 2 months ago. She was desperate about the condition of her son who was behaving in a psychotic fashion. He had locked himself in a room and had gotten out of communication totally. He didn’t take care of himself, just watched TV and talked to himself. My friend somehow slipped food into his room. He ate alone.

My friend tried to get help from the Church but found lot of obstacles and no immediate help. Then she went to the independent field. There she was asked to pay thousands of dollars before anybody would even see her son. It was then that she contacted me out of desperation.

I said I would audit her son over the phone totally free, but her son was not even in a condition to be audited. I then advised her to get her son examined by a trained psychiatrist and put under psychiatric care as necessary. She was petrified at that thought because of all the Church propaganda against psychiatry. I gave her examples of other Scientologists in similar circumstance who had failed to take care of the situation and had suffered gravely. It was a matter of taking the only help available.

So my friend took her son to a psychiatrist. The son was put in a hospital under psychiatric care and given proper medication. From the reports from my friend, her son was treated very humanely. No medication was forced into him. Now her son is much better. He is back in communication with his surroundings and his parents. He is behaving much more normally. He is back at home.

In the mean time, I gave my friend a few Idenics sessions free, and she made tremendous gains just in those few sessions. As I could give her only one session per week, my friend, at my advice, took Idenics processing from Mike Goldstein. She found Idenics processing to be much simpler, with no long runway, and much more effective than Scientology auditing. Even her husband got Idenics processing with great benefit. The whole family is much happier today and no longer desperate. They are still Scientologists and in the Church.

This has been an interesting experience for me too. It highlights the hypocrisy that exists in Scientology and not just in the Church. There have been advances made in Psychiatry whereas, Scientology has remained static.

I believe that spirit, mind and body are three aspects of the same system. Scientology doesn’t look at it that way and that is a big outpoint. Scientology has unnecessary created opterms out of other practices.

That is a very awesome very very well done on helping those people, Vin!

I am not sure about your theory on theta/MEST in Scientology, because I think Hubbard’s thinking on it evolved considerably from 1950 through, say, 1965. Just as his attempts to define “Clear” evolved with time and additional observations. Theta/MESTtheory is pretty earliy, like DMSMH/SoS period, then already with Advanced Procedure and Axioms he was already starting to realize the importance of getting off the postulates that lay at the bottom of an incident, to dropping the running of incident s in favor of “creative processing”, to running incidents again with NED, to looking more intensely at the Four Conditions of existence a la Phoenix Lectures, etc. The subject was always evolving and pretty rapidly.

By the time of “Creation of Human Ability”, he wrote “Considerations take rank over the mechanics of matter, energy, space, and time.”, so he was already considering theta/MEST not as oppterms, but that Theta was senior and pre-existent to any universe. That’s pretty much what The Factors mean to me, because”oppterm” by definition means opposed forces forming a ridge. That’s basically a MEST thing, even if it’s mental MEST involved.

To add: I believe that over time Hubbard discovered that Thought (postulates and considerations) were submerged by Emotion, which was itself submerged by Force. This presented the inverted view he mentioned in CoHA, where for most people were ruled by mechanics. Thus came Dianetics, but the problem with Dianetics was, running an engram was for many people too steep a gradient. The case needed to be unburdened some first. So Self-Analysis addresses “locks” and to some extent “secondaries” after which the person can handle engrams.

His research was all about how do you dig the person out from under the huge pile of rubble of Emotion and Force to get down to the level where the being could once again as-is his own past postulates and make new ones if he wanted to?

If Hubbard’s ideas evolved, then why didn’t he revise his earlier materials? Why didn’t he revise the definition of “Clear” in DMSMH, or withdrew DMSMH as his theory developed? He continued to promote DMSMH heavily.

A scientific treatment of the subject would have demanded claim to a single theory and not to conflicting theories. That makes me wonder how scientific Hubbard was as opposed to being opportunistic?

One of my recent observation was that “wins” may provide a wave-length for implanting or conditioning. I may add bias to it also.

One could have both: If he released newer, better editions of DMSMH, then the old one’s would be there just the same. This is what most authors in scientific fields do when a field develops – new editions.

“A scientific treatment of the subject would have demanded claim to a single theory and not to conflicting theories.”

You’re kidding, right? As though scientific theories don’t change and evolve over time, even very quickly at times, and as though conflicting theories don’t often exist concurrently in our “modern sciences”? Is it the”big bang”, or the”steady state”? Or some other model.

It seems to be like any scientists worth his salt publishes his pet theory, hoping it will be “the one”. And they change their minds as they acquire new data.

LRH had only so much time, and his apparent evaluation of where to invest it was on continued research. And even when he did have/allow others to subsequently “put together” his findings (e.g. BTBs, Notes on the Lectures), their efforts were eventually dismissed as “not LRH.”

Whatever “most authors in scientific fields do,” as far as re-writing their works – even leaving aside what might be considered a massive amount of continued research, I doubt most other authors had as much to re-write as he did!

I never got this meaning from KSW. But I may have missed it. KSW is about the auditing tech primarily, as far as I’m concerned. The HCOBs.

Everything else is Hubbard’s philosophizing, conjecturing, storytelling, etc etc. KSW doesn’t apply to any of that. That’s just the critic’s spin on KSW. And the CoS manipulative brainwashing spin on it, too. That’s why I have sometimes wondered if the major critics actually work for DM.

Vin says “I believe that spirit, mind and body are three aspects of the same system. ”
Chris says, This is not my understanding. I have been taught and found workable the organization of spirit exterior to mind, body, and “product.” In this model, mind-body-product are of the same system with spirit being exterior.

I am thinking Idenics may be the way to go, because it bypasses all the B.S. and BIs (bad indicators)the CoS has generated around LRH and the tech, as far as getting people into session goes. Although I believe and have believed all along that scientology auditing is and always was supposed to be done the way Idenics “auditing” is done, with the most important and actually the only essential elements being being good 2-way comm, granting of beingness, and following of the auditor’s code as far as shunning evaluation and invalidation.

The main problem with Idenics is the hefty price tag on the training course, but that’s still far cheaper than what one might pay for Scientology training these days. It’s just a big all-at-once chunk. But the new Independent courserooms might help with bringing those costs down, as compared with the CoS – where of course I wouldn’t go for training anyway!

The later definitions of Clear were greatly watered down from the original definition in DMSMH. The term “clear” originally came from the computer analogy. Hubbard theorized that if all bugs were removed from the mind, a DMSMH Clear would be obtained. These “bugs” he called engrams.

Trouble came in Dianetics when Hubbard found that as engrams were removed, subsequent engrams became increasingly difficult to find and remove. He explained it as “beefing of the bank.” I don’t think that Hubbard had the right why, because Hubbard could never achieve the DMSMH Clear, even after building the Bridge.

Either Hubbard’s original theorizing is flawed, or he never found the right why for the “beefing up of bank.” I believe that bank beefed up because Hubbard’s approach prevented the mind from un-stacking itself in a natural order. I also think that there is more there than what Hubbard’s theory addresses.

I agree with your comment, and I think it’s pretty obvious that the early definition and description of clear was a gross exaggeration. Similarly I think many of the various supposed EP’s on the bridge are exaggerations. They are pretty sweeping in their scope, such as “return of full self determinism”, or “cause over life”. Yet people attest to these things. Why?

Maybe the answer is as simple as his formulation that “You get an increase of whatever you give your attention to.” By the mid-50s he was very much going in the direction “The accent is on ability” and saying things like “If you keep putting your attention on crime(or war, or illness), you will get more crime(war, illness, etc)”, and the way to reduce crime is to put the focus on honesty,do campaigns and education promoting honesty and so on, the way to reduce illness is to put your focus and attention on health, etc.

I think this eventually resulted in his writing of “The Way To Happiness.”

Depends on what you mean by “seen”. But yes, I “saw” quite a few back in the 1970s, there were a lot of them in my area of southeastern Michigan. Doing TR0 especially OT-TR0 with a Clear is very cool. You would have no doubt after doing that.

One of my favorite activities these days is cross-discipline studies, which have been enabled by the wealth of information available on the Internet. It is extremely fruitful when examining life sciences focused on massive systems such as living beings. The life sciences encompass studies at a microscopic level focused on the tiniest aspects of cell reproduction, larger systems such as endocrinology, still more massive systems such as circulatory, behavioral responses, and so on. Synthesis is rare and often conflicting or at least baffling across disciplines. Yet they are all valid studies / research IN THEIR OWN CONTEXT.

Which brings us to CONTEXT. Context is an often unstated parameter of scientific inquiry and application. I believe that context is often an underlying source of contention and unwarranted dispute.

Taking computer programming as an example, one can write software that provides particular functionality. Particular chunks of code work within that context. But as the software program grows / changes or the operating system grows / changes that chunk of code may lose functionality. It wasn’t bad code, it was very good code that doesn’t work any more in the new context. The true / false or good / bad status of the code comes into question simply because of context. In other words, truth relies on context or surrounding content / data / information.

Another example is Newton’s laws. Much technology is based on those laws. And now we have sciences and technologies that appear to be in violation of those laws. CONTEXT.

Yet another is antibiotics. In the context of bacterial infection, it is very effective. It does not work in the context of viral infection. A particular medicine is designed to work for a particular set of symptoms and not others. CONTEXT.

The missing element seems to be for what purpose and in what context? Eg. it may be true that you can audit someone who has a bacterial infection and completely solve the infection, but it is also true that antibiotics are a better technology for rapid healing.

This is why I think it is important to sort out the Scientology materials, but IMO this will only be useful if context is considered.

As far as all of the para-Scientology materials, they are simply data. Odd to be sure, but I have personally encountered enough truly strange phenomena and noumena in my own explorations to confirm that there are some downright weird aspects to this adventure we call life to make me unwilling to dismiss this data out of hand. The explanations may not be accurate, but then most scientific explanations are not really accurate either. The fact is that there are very odd phenomena that are NOT explained at all for all our scientific advances, even the very peculiar animating factor we call live as opposed to dead. Something was there animating the life form. Now its gone and we call that dead.

Maria, your posts are usually pretty intellectual (some are poetic!) and a lot of them are probably, at least in part, over the heads of many of us. But I would venture to say that even the ones that get little response, are being read and appreciated.

I think I do understand what you mean in the above post, about CONTEXT. I’ve thought of it as “levels” of truth. Or even “apples and oranges.”

And I have the impression that a lot of the conversation on this thread has CONTEXT as “the underlying source of contention and unwarranted dispute.” Thanks for expressing that idea so well.

By the way, your example of medical remedies being the better tech at times than auditing is a good one, as it is part of standard tech – LRH said to get the pc medical help first for any actual medical situation. Great minds think alike…

I really agree with – context has to be considered when sorting out Scientology. Thanks for the focus on that! I bet it helped a lot with the “EP” of this post. 🙂

I am writing from Kyoto, Japan. This is my second day in Japan. I don’t have much Internet time, so I shall be responding to selected posts.

A common problem that I see with E-meter auditing is that if a question does not F/N then the auditor waits for the pc to respond. If the pc does not have an answer then he is forced to look for an answer. This is inadvertant forcing for answer. Overrun starts from this point.

Unstacking is pretty simple. Either there an immediate answer in the mind to a question, or the answer appears by itself as the pc waits, or it does not appear even after a reasonable wait. If the mind has no answer to a question, it should, theoretically F/N, but that does not always happen according to my experience, because usually a pc goes into searching for an answer. Pc’s in Scientology is not trained on just waiting without searching for an answer. Auditing works only when an answer happens to be there immediately. Therefore, Auditing is a hit or miss affair.

Missing an F/N would always lead to an overrun per the above phenomenon. Reliance on F/N alone and not accepting pc’s indicators, or not accepting pc’s assertion that there is nothing coming up, also leads to inadvertant forcing of an answer.

From my experience, such a situation is very common with Scientology auditing.

Vinay, a pc shouldn’t be looking for an answer on a question that neither F/Ns nor reads. If he is, then the auditor isn’t in control or running the session correctly, and that’s out-tech. It’s not up to the pc, at all, to know when or what to look at, as you have indicated on other posts.

But it’s probably silly for us to go back and forth about tech points. The main thing I wanted to say is that I think what you said here is an example of stating an outpoint based on insufficient study and false data.

You’re not promoting the tech you’ve developed very well when you compare it to LRH tech and in so doing show that you don’t really know what you’re talking about. No offense otherwise – you may very well have a simple, workable tech!

I am trying to put forth my observations without bias as best as I can. If you have disagreemnt with something I have said, then let’s discuss that point. I don’t know what I have said that is generality to you, because you have not pointed to anything specific.

I am willing to discuss what appears disagreeable to you, if you give me a chance.

Please let me know the first disagreement that comes to your mind when you think of me, following the un-stacking principle.

This blog began by Geir challenging Scientology to scientifically prove its various claims about the mind and the body. I take this to mean any claim that Scientology produces a physiological reaction within the body that could reasonably be measured in the usual “objective” ways. After almost 400 postings, it seems that we have had a very entertaining coffee-table discussion. Many good, comments, and suggestions have been made toward this result and many many normal and entertaining chatty discussions.

Scientology, not the Church, has many auditing processes aimed at a pre-clear or pre-OT handling the mind in such a way as to produce dynamic and physiological effects. These would be measurable using readily available electrical meters. The idea that there isn’t a paper out there after after all these decades discussingon these electrical effects seems unlikely. So is there one? Has anyone hooked up a PC to a voltage and amp-meter and then run any of these powerful processes to verify these claims by LRH? If so does anyone reading this know where to find them? If not, let’s propose some parameters and hook ’em up. Does this seem reasonable?

The galvanic skin response is well understood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_conductance). There’s no doubt that changes in a person’s body (by which I include the brain) affect skin conductance and that it can be measured. What is dubious is the claim that a change in skin response can be mapped to a certain thought or motive or emotion in a meaningful, repeatable way. A needle might jump because you had a hunger pang, for example.

Regarding LRH’s Mission Into Time: LRH had a hard time with this one. Some of those people involved with these missions are still around. I have personally gone back to childhood haunts to uncover archaeological “relics” such as names that I carved on rocks, trees, etc.,. It was my experience that this was surprisingly difficult to do. Even when I was in a correct location, no doubt about it, things just looked different. The world changes and our point of view changes. I’ve been thinking about after reading another post above suggesting there might be archaeological of Xenu. Not trying to be mean about it, but that seems like quite for any archaeological evidence to be preserved. Anyone else have any experiences with this?

At the very least we should demand scientific proof of all those things which LRH claimed are scientific facts. As for me I can say that one of the main reasons I got into Scn in the first place was that it was not a belief, but based on good science. I was not interested in faith: I wanted knowledge and certainty. The human spirit had supposedly been proven for instance, and past lives had been investigated and shown to be true. At the time I was somewhat knowledgeable in the scientific method, but as I found out later on I was no expert. And when I discovered that there were enormous holes in what had been claimed as scientifically proven it was a huge disappointment to me. What I get from large parts of the discussions here is that the scientific method is not that well known and there are lots of misconceptions surrounding it. I think anyone who is serious about wanting to “know how to know” should make a effort to master the scientific method. Not that it is necessarily the end-all in the matter, but it is certainly a good start, and without it our civilization would still be in the middle ages.

I’m curious about how much “good science” Scientology was actually based on. The word “Scientology” doesn’t make it scientific. Good science involves making hypotheses, doing experiments which can show those hypotheses to be false, testing new prediction made by a theory, and using peer review to weed out poor research. As far as I can tell from LRH’s “research”, it involved him asserting things. Even if something he said makes good sense, that is not science. I’d like to see some proper science applied to Scientology.

On the ScnForum.Org Philosophy Category, there is a thread called “What we can and should test scientifically?” Some of the claims are resolved already by thought experiments that require no actual physical counterpart to demonstrate falsifiability.

Please feel free to read and add any testable claims made by Hubbard that you know of.

I read your essay and like that you gathered your thoughts and wrote them down. I feel that practicing at this type of construct is helpful to lend substance to our sometimes ethereal thoughts. Keep up the good work.

Thanks. It seems to be all about observation, and finding the consistency among that observation. For example, it is interesting to see what shows up when one looks for consistency between the definition of a “thetan,” and the idea of “thetan occupying space.”

Does thetan have dimensions that it can occupy space? I am sure that a thetan does not occupy space the same way that an object does. So, what does it really mean when somebody says, “Ohe thetan is occupying certain space?”

yes, a placeholder without the card, name, or place. A name given to that which IS NOT. The Source of WHAT IS. The Author of the world but who is not IN or OF the world. I would not use “ego” to describe this at all. I would back up another step before “ego” to begin describing the indescribable. There, now didn’t I make a lovely mish-mash of it? haha

As you can see from the Essay #6 (see above), I no longer believe in a thetan being something real. The word “thetan” may be a placeholder for unknowable, but it is nothing in itself. When a person looks at himself as a thetan, he is really looking at his ego. Individuality is simply a characteristic of the ego. Knowing oneself is simply realizing the depth of the unknowable.

One is naturally humble when one has discarded his ego and looks at everything with an equanimity of the mind. Humbleness is not some characteristic that you develop. One is, of course, interested because there is no self or ago to parade around.

Please don’t be stuck in LRH’s viewpoint. Look for yourself what is there. I am simply writing what makes sense to me. It is neither the rejection of LRH nor an approval of Buddha.

Vin writes, “One is naturally humble when one has discarded his ego and looks at everything with an equanimity of the mind. Humbleness is not some characteristic that you develop. One is, of course, interested because there is no self or ago to parade around.”

Chris writes – You see, with this you can now get your book published, “Handbook for the Unknowable.” haha!

Actually it is needless to categorize or identify wins by Grades. Grades are arbitrary. A mind is not necessarily stacked up in the same order as Grades. One can do the Grades several times and each time get more wins. Wins come from looking, and the mind un-stacks itself in the reverse order of how it is stacked up.

On OT levels, one is simply running the Grades over and over again, but through the via of imaginary entities.

Pre-OTs who are getting “better” are paraded and well advertised. The pre-OTs who are getting “sicker” are not. That is natural in the way Scientology believes in promoting “theta” and ignoring “entheta.”

So, the outpoint of “omitted entheta” is built into the Scientology world. Entheta is there but it is deliberately omitted. So, I would say that your observation was not complete but partial.

Marildi, bias actually occurs when one’s observation is incomplete. Sometimes certain information is deliberately omitted, such as, any information that may make Scientology look bad. At other times, the viewpoint itself is designed to omit certain information. For example, a conflict continues because the parties in that conflict look from the viewpoint, which presents their side only. If the parties in conflict could look from a broader viewpoint, which included both the sides, then the conflict would resolve pretty quickly.

Scientology has had a pretty decent chance while LRH was alive. People had a lot of fun in Scientology in the 50s, but not so much in the 60s and later.

I do not give Scientology much of chance of spreading in its current form as a grassroots movement even in the Independent field.

Idenics and KHTK, probably, have a much better chance. KHTK is still in its formative stages and it has a long way to go; but it is “Open Spiritware,” and it is anybody’s guess how it would develop to a ripened stage.

I don’t see that “defending ideas” is essentially any different from “pooling viewpoints.” You may feel that the word “defend” has a connotation of presenting ideas dogmatically or with bias or prejudice, and having no willingness to look at (and possibly accept) other viewpoints being presented. But I myself had in mind just the type of discussion you expressed -“pooling different viewpoints in search for deeper truth.”

Now, if you meant to say that my ability to actually “do” that kind of discussion was lacking, it was not for lack of willingness on my part. And I think this thread, including your own contributions, has helped me along! 🙂

To ms “Scientology works” that it helps people achieve their personal goals, whatever they are.. Those goals are not always rational. Regardless of a goal being rational or irrational, if a person achieves it through Scientology, then Scientology works for him or her.

Outpoints are not derived from opinions and conjectures. Outpoint are derived from what one actually sees to be there by contrasting it against a well defined ideal scene. If the ideal scene being used is incorrect then those “outpoints” become errors. See the Data Series.

An opinion is an opinion, well-informed or not. And facts are facts. The starting point should always be the ideal scene. Valkov, your starting point seems to be what LRH has said, and not some factual ideal scene. The questions one needs to answer is,
(1) “What is the purpose of Standard Tech?”
(2) “What ideal scene would be there if that purpose is being achieved?”
(3) “Is the Standard Tech bringing about that ideal scene?”

The above questions are exactly per Data Series. Deciding who an uncompromised Class VIII auditor is, is again getting into opinions. It would be like adhering to authority. That is something LRH warned against. The contradiction here is LRH promoted himself as an authority, or maybe he did not. But many Scientologists treat him as an authority, and this goes against Data Series principles.

Your argument goes against Data Series principles. As far as I am concerned, the safest bet is to start with the 3 questions above.

I believe that my wins at lower part of the bridge rivaled the wins people may boast at OT Levels. You may Google “Vinaire’s Story” to get some idea of those wins.

But that was not all. My greatest epiphanies came from the study and application of the Data Series. I was supervised on Data Series course by Mary Sue during early 70s on Flagship Apollo. I then applied that material as Programs Chief on Apollo. Later I word cleared and crammed senior executives at Flag on Data Series from the position of Admin Cramming Officer.

If there is true OT tech, it is contained in Data Series. It promotes pure LOOKING.

The point about the pc getting “worse” or “sicker” before getting better occurs when he is given too much bank to confront. This seems to happen routinely in auditing because auditing tends to push the pc into his bank. The results of this can be violent, as when a wrong item is given to the pc on a Listing & Nulling question. I have very good reality on it.

I was being case supervised by LRH when he was developing the New Vitality RD in 1975-76. LRH has C/Sed me for L&N question, which he had come up using my case data. The auditor ran the L&N process. The item he gave me totally caved me in. It was a terrible experience of almost dying. My folder was rushed to LRH, and I was taken back into session within hours. As soon as the right item was given, I stepped out of my personal hell. It was like the “life switch” was turned back on.

This leads to my criticism of auditing in general. Auditing tends to violate the natural order in which the mind wants to un-stack itself. When the natural un-stacking order of the mind is followed, there is no opportunities for overruns, sickness or cave-ins. KHTK approach aloows that natural un-stacking to occur.

From Wikipedia we get the following breakdown of THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD:Use your experience
• Consider the problem
• Try to make sense of it
• Look for previous explanationsForm a conjecture
• Try to state an explanationDeduce a prediction from that explanation
• Look at the consequences that follow from that explanationTest (Experiment)
• Look for the opposite of each consequence to disprove the conjecture
• A prediction is not necessarily a proof of the conjecture

The last point of “Test” tells us that just because we gets wins from Scientology, it does not necessarily means that the conjectures (explanations) in Scientology are true.

We need to closely look at when the opposite or the prediction (no wins) occurs, and the explanation for that. How does a lack of win measures up against the conjectures (explanations) in Scientology.

There are plenty of “no wins” in Scientology. Do these disprove the conjectures in Scientology? Well, this seems to be what this thread is about.

I agree with you on this. Wins are definitely not a test or at least not THE test for the underlying theories of Scientology.

On the other hand, if we just want to check whether a certain procedure in Scientology is workable, i.e. produces wins, then testing to see if such wins occur might be good enough evidence. Of course the test would have to include a definition of how good a win needs to be and how we can measure it and compared to what, as well as all routing precautions such as double blind; control group; large sample; placebo etc.

For a Scientology procedure to be workable, it must produce wins uniformly in all cases. If it doesn’t do that then one needs to isolate those factors, which produce the wins, and create a procedure just with those factors and put it through the test again.

Just because wins occur on OT III, it does not necessarily prove the explanations provided in OT III.

Are the wins obtained from OT III unique and different from the wins available on other levels, or in other subjects? I have no reason to believe that.

What is being done on OT III that is unique and follows from its explanations? Well, LOOKING is not unique. Looking at locations in space is not unique. Looking at sources of feelings, emotions, and sensations is not unique. Looking at locations in space as sources of feelings, emotions, and sensations does not follow uniquely from the OT III story either.

So what makes OT III story as a valid explanation of the wins that occur on OT III?

Science looks at a natural phenomena that is observable and comes up with an explanation for it from experience. Then it investigates that explanation as to its broader applicability.

From this point of view let’s look at the phenomena of human suffering. Buddhism addresses it. Pychoanalysis addresses it. Scientology addresses it. These three subjects have come up with different explanations. Which explanation is most scientific?

The explanation provided by Buddhism is the lack of the discipline of looking without assuming anything leads to this suffering. If you look at things just as they are, you gradually gain the insight that makes the suffering more tolerable for you. It does not prevent the suffering that comes from growing old, getting sick, etc.; but you can be peaceful in their presence. The method recommended by Buddha is called Vipassana meditation.

The explanation provided by Psychoanalysis (from Wikipedia) is: Freudian psychoanalysis refers to a specific type of treatment in which the “analysand” (analytic patient) verbalizes thoughts, including free associations, fantasies, and dreams, from which the analyst induces the unconscious conflicts causing the patient’s symptoms and character problems, and interprets them for the patient to create insight for resolution of the problems. Here a person is told by an expert what he needs to consider to resolve his sufferings. This method is directed towards the resolution of immediate suffering of a person.

The explanation provided by Scientology is that suffering is caused by deeply buried moments of pain and unconsciousness; and the awareness of such moments would then relieve the person of his suffering. Here a person is assisted by an expert in looking and discovering such moments. This method seems to promise the eradication of all sufferings of a person.

I do not think that all sufferings of a person can ever be eradicated. The person would still get old and feeble and sick, and the sufferings, which accompany those conditions would still be there. However, a person can achieve insights into these conditions, which can make him rise above such conditions and operate in an optimum manner despite them.

Let’s take a look at which of the above three subjects approach the problem of suffering most scientifically. Comments?

vinaire: “Let’s take a look at which of the above three subjects approach the problem of suffering most scientifically. Comments?”

The greatest difficulty in approaching any of the three scientifically is that suffering is only observable through symptoms and a man’s ability to express how he feels in terms that express it clearly. (Pain relievers is a good example here, as are the use of control groups and placebos. To measure it scientifically, there would have to be a large enough pool to see the actual causes and effects and trim out the external factors.)

The systems don’t promise immediate cures nor is their effect measurable in a way that proves that system works. A man can sit down suffering THIS much and stand up later suffering THAT much. If he says that THIS is more than THAT, is it proof something done in-between is the solution to reduce suffering? Even non-systems, such as getting a phone call from a friend saying “Hi” can change how much suffering the man feels he is experiencing. Having a stray thought of a happy event in one’s life could make the man feel he is suffering less.

And every one of those systems has fail-safes – reasons and excuses within the system to explain why it didn’t work. (The “man had too little faith” or the “man could not clear his mind properly” or the “man was unwilling to open up and be honest” or the “man was being told by an outside source he wouldn’t get better”.) A scientific study of any could easily get bogged down in proving it was done right rather than whether it worked.

Quotes: In other words, truth relies on context or surrounding content / data / information… This is why I think it is important to sort out the Scientology materials, but IMO this will only be useful if context is considered… The fact is that there are very odd phenomena that are NOT explained at all for all our scientific advances, even the very peculiar animating factor we call live as opposed to dead. Something was there animating the life form. Now its gone and we call that dead.

Great points! The problem of context may be resolved when one looks for consistency throughout the spectrum. The approach could be to sort out the inconsistencies without invalidating them.

Science seems to have become very limited in its scope because it bases itself on the “objectivity” of the physical universe.

What is objectivity really? Objective mans, “Not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice.” Is science really objective when it bases itself on the “objectivity” of the physical universe? I don’t think so. Where the physical universe is concerned, science is simply dealing with an average of personal feelings, interpretations, and prejudice.

Science seems to assume that one cannot look at the contents of the mind objectively. Is it because the contents of the mind are “internal” to a person? Here we have another arbitrary. What is “internal” as opposed to “external”? Where does one draw the line?

The line is obviously drawn at the “person”. But, what is a person? Can one stand outside of this construct called “person” and look at it objectively? I think that it is very possible.

Science will make a great leap when it can stand on its own and look at the “being” or the “self” as objectively as it can look at the “physical universe.”

By the way, I doubt if we are really being objective about the physical universe. Quantum mechanics has created doubt about the objectivity of the physical universe. Maybe when one can stand beyond the idea of the “self” or the “being,” then one may also find the physical universe to be entirely different from what one has believed it to be until now.

“O/Ws” seems to be another way of talking about the “feeling of guilt.” If there is a feeling of guilt and one looks (experiences) it non-judgmentally, then it would discharge pretty quickly. There is no need to go into all the gory details. On the subject of “O/Ws” there simply seems to be voyeurism in Scientology. I am not sure if Hubbard enjoyed reading people’s O/Ws.

From an individual’s viewpoint O/Ws indicate a heavy internal conflict that a person does not want to look at.

And so it came to be that the longest straight line ever drawn can by definition only be one Planck unit long. But then the mathematics of the Mandelbrot set will divide and make that straight line as crooked as a Paisley design.

I don’t think logic is breaking down at this level. I think that at this level, logic is exposing the naked fallacy of the physical universe. There are no paradoxes. But there can be new “things” to worship and new religions! haha

From what I understand of what I’ve read, even if Mayo did “write” or compile the HCOBs, the contention is that he wrote them completely based on LRH’S dictated tapes on the matter. (Or is that all you mean by “wrote”?)

According to Marty Rathbun’s recent article on this subject, there exists a lot of physical evidence of the above.

But it is definitely a cool piece of technology at that website! (Assuming it works, of course.)

Re: Sync’ing realities to manifest MEST
. . . After all the arguing back and forth about “nothing” addressing “something” seems easier!
1. I am so curious about the nature of tone. Is it a measurable radiation?
2. I want to regard the relationship of EEG brain waves to tone but don’t know enough.
3. As the brain rev’s up to Beta for more concentrated activity, the wavelength becomes shorter. “Brain” learning occurs at a longer wave length. I am not sure if tone of a being is even related to brain waves of a body.
4. In radio, etc.,. shorter wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation are more penetrating and for communication purposes are more efficient requiring less overall energy to achieve the desired transportation of signal. This seems to me to correlate to tone of a being. The higher toned, the more effective and efficient are her activities.
5. Sync’ing? I can’t even make my “Outlook” sync with my new cell phone! Figuring out how the universe syncs realities to manifest in all its glory seems out-gradient for me this morning!
6. But, you know, last night I slept very well. I woke this morning very much less agitated, more relaxed and able to focus than when I went to bed. My reality changed from some slight anxiety and anxiousness to the day beginning fresh and sweet. My thoughts this morning are calm, quiet, able to being focused. The experience of my tone is that it is higher than when I went to bed. So like everyone who wonders about how sleep works, I wonder.
7. Lost interest in enumerating anymore! Maybe sometimes we just need to rest and then get up and go to work and play. I’m having a coffee and a chocolate chip cookie with walnuts, then out the door.

Around 99,999999% of the Earth’s population have never seen the inside of my house. To them it does not exist?”

I meant to reply on this but got sidetracked….

Re; your questions: Actually, yes, I have a limited knowledge of your existence. The persona of ‘Geir’ may be the invention of a secret think-tank performing social experiments on the Internet, for all I know. You may exist, but putting theta perceptics aside and short of flying out sometime and visiting you, your house, your business etc, how ‘real’ is your ‘existence’ to me? I have seen photos of you, posted on your forum and your blog,so my inference is that you do exist and are just as you say you are.

It is the same with the other things you mentioned. To most of the world’s population, neither you nor I do in fact exist. They have never heard of us, seen us. Nor our houses.

I don’t absolutely KNOW Antarctica or Dar esSalaam exist, or that your house exists.

As for ‘bosons’, I am more likely to meet a ‘bison’ than a boson. The existence of bosons is perhaps inferential knowledge. Perhaps to similar to knowledge of ‘other thetans’. I may know I exist, but do I really know all these other ‘thetans’ exist?

You have raised the interesting question of “How do I know how actually existent are other people and places?” or, “How real does something have to be before it is real to me”, or some such thing.

Things exist to the degree one considers they exist. They may or may not have an existence beyond one’s considerations, but all knowledge comes simply from considerations. That applies to Geir, Valkov, Dar-es-Salaam, Antartica, backside of the moon, bisons and bosons. This is my current view.

The important factor is not what one considers but the consistency among considerations.

Considerations are held within a network of considerations. They may be consistent or inconsistent. To that degree there is simplicity or complexity of understanding. Complete sense comes from complete consistency and simplicity. The desire to know is satisfied at that point.

Yes, I get it. There are two issues – 1. whether something exists, and 2. whether I know it exists.

Geir’s house may exist, apart from my knowing it exists.
My consideration may be that Geir actually has no house and lives out of his car(sorry Geir!), and I may believe this, but that does not make it true in reality.

If I keep insisting it is true in the presence of others who know Geir really does have a house, they may decide I am nuts and even have me locked up in a nuthouse! Or, horrors, feed me to squirrels! 🙂

Your descriptions of your considerations about considerations are beautifully circular. You must have a good laugh over tea when relating your latest postings such as:
“The null viewpoint is not based on any consideration.” hahaha you had me going there for a while.

This assertion, “a thetan can occupy the same space any object is occupying” is not the same as the assertion,”an object can occupy the same space any other object is occupying.” A thetan is not an object but a bundle of considerations.

Can two considerations occupy the same space simultaneously? Yes, if they are consistent; otherwise not.

“This assertion, “a thetan can occupy the same space any object is occupying” is not the same as the assertion,”an object can occupy the same space any other object is occupying.” A thetan is not an object but a bundle of considerations.”

Vin,I’m going to research this whole business – but I don’t know when. In Phoenix Lectures Hubbard mostly talks about ‘perfect duplicates’. That’s not the same as two different objects, or even two different considerations. My view is that considerations are made of something, if only much ‘thinner’ or ‘finer’ “stuff” than my chair. They don’t have the same degree of solidity, but they are in their own way ‘solid’.

Hubbard said,

“It is not, however, true that two things cannot occupy the same space. It is particularly untrue when the two ‘things’ are an object and a thetan, since a thetan can occupy the same space any object is occupying.”

What did he mean? I read it and I find I may be missing his exact meaning here, so I’m planning to research it. A lot depends on how ‘object’ is defined.

The perfect duplicate of an object would be an object. The perfect duplicate of a consideration would be a consideration. The perfect duplicate of an object would not be a consideration. The perfect duplicate of space would be space. That is “Duplication 101.”

When you consider then just look at that consideration and you will know what a consideration is made up of. Solidity is simply another view of persistence.

Before you try to figure out if two objects can occupy the same space or not, just look at what is meant by “an object occupying space.” Also, have a look at what a thetan is. 🙂

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